Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and
printmaker
Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proce ...
whose work is associated with
abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
,
Neo-Dada
Neo-Dada was a movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclasm, a ...
, and
pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the
American flag
The national flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the ''American flag'' or the ''U.S. flag'', consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the c ...
and other US-related topics. Johns's works regularly sell for millions of dollars at sale and auction, including a reported $110 million sale in 2010. At multiple times works by Johns have held the title of
most paid for a work by a living artist.
Johns has received many honors throughout his career, including the
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
in 1990 and
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...
in 2011. He was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 2007. In 2018, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called him the United States' "foremost living artist."
Life
Born in
Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in
Allendale, South Carolina, with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed. He then spent a year living with his mother in
Columbia, South Carolina, and thereafter, several years living with his Aunt Gladys in
Lake Murray, South Carolina, twenty-two miles from Columbia. He spent time with his father Jasper, Sr and stepmother, Geraldine Sineath Johns, who encouraged his art by buying materials for him to draw and paint. He completed Edmunds High School (now
Sumter High School) class of 1947 in
Sumter Sumter may refer to:
People Given name
* Sumter S. Arnim (1904–1990), American dentist
* Sumter de Leon Lowry Jr. (1893–1985), United States Army general
Surname
* Rowendy Sumter (born 1988), Curaçaoan footballer
* Shavonda E. Sumter ( ...
, South Carolina, where he once again lived with his mother.
Recounting this period in his life, he said, "In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in."
Johns studied a total of three semesters at the
University of South Carolina, from 1947 to 1948.
He then moved to New York City and studied briefly at the
Parsons School of Design
Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...
in 1949.
In 1952 and 1953, he was stationed in
Sendai
is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, desig ...
, Japan, during the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
.
In 1954, after returning to New York, Johns met
Robert Rauschenberg
Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
and they became long-term lovers. For a time they lived in the same building as
Rachel Rosenthal
Rachel Rosenthal (November 9, 1926 – May 10, 2015) was a French-born interdisciplinary and performance artist, teacher, actress, and animal rights activist based in Los Angeles.
She was best known for her full-length performance art pieces whi ...
.
During the same period he was strongly influenced by the gay couple
Merce Cunningham
Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
(a choreographer) and
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
(a composer).
Working together they explored the contemporary art scene, and began developing their ideas on art.
In 1958, gallery owner
Leo Castelli
Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...
discovered Johns while visiting Rauschenberg's studio.
“And we went down," Castelli remembered. "And then I was confronted with that miraculous array of unprecedented images -- flags, red, white and blue... All white... Large ones... small ones, targets... numbers, alphabets. Just an incredible sight ... Something one could not imagine, new and out of the blue." Castelli immediately offered Johns his first solo show. It was here that
Alfred Barr
Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (January 28, 1902 – August 15, 1981) was an American art historian and the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. From that position, he was one of the most influential forces in the development of ...
, the founding director of New York's
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, purchased four works from this show.
In 1960 he received the Vincent van Volkmer Prize. In 1963, Johns and Cage founded the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, now known as the
Foundation for Contemporary Arts
The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), is a nonprofit based foundation in New York City that offers financial support and recognition to contemporary performing and visual artists through awards for artistic innovation and potential. It was ...
in New York City.
Johns currently lives in
Sharon, Connecticut
Sharon is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States, in the northwest corner of the state. At the time of the 2020 census, the town had a total population of 2,680. The ZIP code for Sharon is 06069. The urban center of the town is ...
, and on the island of
Saint Martin. Until 2012, he lived in a rustic 1930s farmhouse with a glass-walled studio in
Stony Point, New York
Stony Point is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Rockland County, New York, United States. It is part of the New York City Metropolitan Area. The town is located north of the town of Haverstraw, New York, Haverstraw, east and ...
. He first began visiting Saint Martin in the late 1960s and bought the property there in 1972. The architect
Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the pos ...
is the principal designer of his Saint Martin home, a long, white, rectangular structure divided into three distinct sections.
Work
Painting
Johns is best known for his series of flags, maps, targets, letters and numbers, a practice he began in 1954 after burning all his previous artwork.
He started introducing
text and numbers into his abstract paintings, such as ''Gray Numbers'' (1957) and ''False Start'' (1959), thus reinstating content.
His use of defined or extant symbols differentiated his paintings from the gestural abstraction of the
Abstract Expressionists
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
, whose paintings were often understood as expressive of the individual personality or psychology of the artist. Because Johns imported well-known motifs into the fine arts, his paintings could be read as both
representational (a flag, a target) and as
abstract patterns (stripes, circles).
Some art historians and museums characterize his choice of subjects as freeing him from decisions about composition.
Johns has remarked: "What’s interesting to me is the fact that it isn’t designed, but taken. It’s not mine,” or, that these motifs are "things the mind already knows."
His
encaustic painting ''
Flag
A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...
'' (1954–55), which he painted after having a dream of the
American flag
The national flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the ''American flag'' or the ''U.S. flag'', consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the c ...
, marks the beginning of this new period.
''Flag'' allowed Johns to create a painting that was not completely abstract because it depicted a symbol (the American flag), yet drew attention to the graphic design of the symbol itself; was not personal because it was a national symbol, and yet, retained a sense of the handmade in the wax brushstrokes; and was not itself a literal flag, yet was not simply a painting.
The painting raises a set of complex questions with no clear answers through its combination of symbol and medium.
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
director
Alfred H. Barr had to convince the museum trustees to buy the painting, as they were afraid its ambiguity might lead to boycott or attack by patriotic groups.
Johns has made over forty variations of American flag paintings.
He also often used
plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...
reliefs in his paintings (such as ''Targets with Four Faces'', 1955), which challenge typical conceptions of paintings as two-dimensional. Johns often used encaustic as a painting method to create bumpy, textured surfaces unusual in painting. Johns' 2020 work ''
Slice'' includes a drawing of a knee by Jéan-Marc Togodgue, a Cameroonian emigre student basketball player who attends the
Salisbury School
Salisbury School is an all-boys, private college-preparatory boarding school founded in 1901 and located in Salisbury, Connecticut. Its school newspaper is ''The Cupola''. Its mascot is the Crimson Knight. The school's motto is ''Esse quam vider ...
near John's estate in Sharon.
Johns' use of Togodgue's artwork without first notifying him led to a dispute which was settled amicably.
Sculpture
Johns makes his sculptures in wax first, working the surfaces in a complex pattern of textures, often layering collaged elements such as impressions of newsprint, or of a key, a cast of his friend
Merce Cunningham
Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
's foot, or one of his own hand. He then casts the waxes in bronze, and, finally, works over the surface again, applying the patina.
''Flashlight'' is one of his earliest pedestal-based sculptures. One sculpture, a double-sided relief titled ''Fragment of a Letter'' (2009), incorporates part of a letter from
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...
to his friend, the artist
Émile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard (28 April 1868 – 16 April 1941) was a French Post-Impressionist painter and writer, who had artistic friendships with Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Eugène Boch, and at a later time, Paul Cézanne. Most of his nota ...
. Using blocks of type, Johns pressed the letters of van Gogh's words into the wax. On the other side he spelled out the letter in the
American Sign Language
American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual lang ...
alphabet with stamps he made himself. Finally, he signed his name in the wax with his hands in sign language. ''Numbers'' (2007) is the largest single bronze Johns has made and depicts his now classic pattern of stenciled numerals repeated in a grid.
Prints
Johns also produces
intaglio prints, sculptures and
lithograph
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
s. Since 1960 Johns has worked closely with Universal Limited Art Editions, Inc (ULAE) in a variety of printmaking techniques to investigate and develop existing compositions. Initially, lithography suited Johns and enabled him to create print versions of iconic depictions of flags, maps, and targets that filled his paintings. In 1971, Johns became the first artist at ULAE to use the handfed offset lithographic press, resulting in ''Decoy'' — an image realized in printmaking before it was made in drawing or painting. However, apart from the ''Lead Reliefs'' series of 1969, he has concentrated his efforts on lithography at
Gemini G.E.L.
Gemini G.E.L., formally Gemini Ltd., is an artists‘ workshop, exhibition space, and publisher of limited edition Printmaking, prints and sculptures, located at 8365 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, California.
History
Gemini Ltd. was founded in ...
In 1976, Johns partnered with writer
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...
to create ''
Foirades/Fizzles''; the book includes 33 etchings, which revisit an earlier work by Johns and five text fragments by Beckett. He has also worked with Atelier
Crommelynck in Paris, in association with Petersburg Press of London and New York; and Simca Print Artists in New York. In 2000, Johns produced a limited-edition linocut for the Grenfell Press.
In 1973, Johns produced a print called ''Cup 2 Picasso'', for ''XXe siècle'', a French publication. For the May 2014 issue of ''
Art in America
''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...
'', he created a black-and-white lithograph depicting many of his signature motifs, including numbers, a map of the United States and sign language.
Collaborations
For decades Johns worked with others to raise both funds and attention for
Merce Cunningham
Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
's choreography. He privately assisted
Robert Rauschenberg
Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...
in some of his 1950s designs for Cunningham. In spring 1963, Johns helped start the
Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, then intended to sponsor and raise funds in the performance field; the other founders were
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
,
Elaine de Kooning
Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning (, née Fried; March 12, 1918 – February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an edito ...
, the designer David Hayes, and the theater producer Lewis B. Lloyd.
Johns later was the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's artistic adviser from 1967 to 1980. In 1968 Johns and Cunningham made a
Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
-inspired theater piece, ''Walkaround Time'', in which Johns's décor replicates elements of Duchamp's work ''
The Large Glass'' (1915–23). Earlier, Johns also wrote
neodada
Neo-Dada was a movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclasm, a ...
lyrics for
The Druds, a short-lived
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
noise music
Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical ...
art band that featured prominent members of the New York proto-
conceptual art
Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
and
minimal art
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or conc ...
community. Johns himself was a subject of a painting when
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...
painted him in one of his large scale portraits in 1998.
Commissions
In 1964, architect
Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the pos ...
, a friend, commissioned Johns to make a piece for what is now the David H. Koch Theater at
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...
. After presiding over the theatre's lobby for 35 years, ''Numbers'' (1964), an enormous 9-foot-by-7-foot grid of numerals, was supposed to be sold by the center for a reported $15 million. Art historians consider ''Numbers'' a historically important work in part because it is the largest of the artist's numbers motifs and the only one where each unit is on a separate stretcher, fashioned from a material called Sculpmetal, which was chosen by the artist for its durability. Responding to widespread criticism, the board of Lincoln Center had to drop its selling plans.
Style
Johns's work is sometimes grouped in with
Neo-Dada
Neo-Dada was a movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclasm, a ...
ist and
pop art: he uses symbols in the
Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
tradition of the
readymades of
Marcel Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
, but unlike many Pop artists like
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
, he does not engage with celebrity culture.
Other scholars and museums position Johns and Rauschenberg as predecessors of Pop Art.
Valuation
In 1998, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in New York bought Johns's ''
White Flag
White flags have had different meanings throughout history and depending on the locale.
Contemporary use
The white flag is an internationally recognized protective sign of truce or ceasefire, and for negotiation. It is also used to symbolize ...
''. While the Museum would not disclose how much was paid, ''The New York Times'' reported that "experts estimate
he painting's
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
value at more than $20 million". The
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
acquired about 1,700 of Johns's proofs in 2007. This made the gallery home to the largest number of Johns's works held by a single institution. The exhibition showed works from many points in Johns's career, including recent proofs of his prints. The
Greenville County Museum of Art
The Greenville County Museum of Art (GCMA) is an art museum located in Greenville, South Carolina. Its collections focus mainly on American art, and its holdings include works by Andrew Wyeth, Josef Albers, Jasper Johns (raised in South Carolina), ...
in
Greenville, South Carolina
Greenville (; locally ) is a city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. Greenville is located approximately halfway be ...
, has several of his pieces in their permanent collection.
Johns was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1984.
In 1990, he was awarded the
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
. On February 15, 2011, he received the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...
from President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
, becoming the first painter or sculptor to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom since
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...
in 1977. In 1990 he was elected into the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...
as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1994. In 1994 he was awarded the
Edward MacDowell Medal
The Edward MacDowell Medal is an award which has been given since 1960 to one person annually who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture and the arts. It is given by MacDowell, the first artist residency program in the United Sta ...
.
His text ''Statement'' (1959) has been published in ''Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings''.
Since the 1980s, Johns typically produces only four to five paintings a year; some years he produces none. His large-scale paintings are much favored by collectors and because of their rarity are extremely difficult to acquire. His works from the mid to late 1950s, typically viewed as his period of rebellion against abstract expressionism, remain his most sought after. Skate's Art Market Research (Skate Press, Ltd.), a New York-based advisory firm servicing private and institutional investors in the art market, has ranked Jasper Johns as the 30th most valuable artist in the world. The firm's index of the 1,000 most valuable works of art sold at auction—Skate's Top 1000—contains 7 works by Johns.
In 1980 the
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
paid $1 million for ''Three Flags'' (1958), then the highest price ever paid for the work of a living artist.
In 1988, Johns's ''False Start'' was sold at auction at Sotheby's to Samuel I. Newhouse, Jr., for $17.05 million, setting a record at the time as the
highest price paid for a work by a living artist at auction, and the second highest price paid for an artwork at auction in the U.S. In 2006, private collectors Anne and Kenneth Griffin (founder of the Chicago-based
hedge fund
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...
Citadel LLC
Citadel LLC (formerly known as Citadel Investment Group, LLC) is an American multinational hedge fund and financial services company. Founded in 1990 by Kenneth C. Griffin, it has more than $50 billion in assets under management . The company ...
) bought ''False Start'' (1959) from
David Geffen
David Lawrence Geffen (born February 21, 1943) is an American business magnate, producer and film studio executive. He co-created Asylum Records in 1971 with Elliot Roberts, Geffen Records in 1980, DGC Records in 1990, and DreamWorks SKG in 199 ...
[Jori Finkel (May 14, 2009)]
Jasper Johns
''BLOUINARTINFO''. for $80 million, making it the most expensive painting by a living artist.
On November 11, 2014, a 1983 version of ''Flag'' was auctioned at Sotheby's in New York for $36 million, establishing a new auction record for Johns.
In 2010, ''Flag'' (1958), one of a series, was sold privately to hedge fund billionaire
Steven A. Cohen for a reported $110 million (then £73 million; €81.7 million). The seller was Jean-Christophe Castelli, son of Leo Castelli, Johns's legendary dealer, who had died in 1999. While the price was not disclosed by the parties, art experts say Cohen paid about $110 million. "Flags" are Johns's most famous works. The artist painted his first American flag in 1954–1955, a work now at the MoMA.
Selected work
* ''
Flag
A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...
'' (1954–1955)
* ''
White Flag
White flags have had different meanings throughout history and depending on the locale.
Contemporary use
The white flag is an internationally recognized protective sign of truce or ceasefire, and for negotiation. It is also used to symbolize ...
'' (1955)
* ''Target with Plaster Casts'' (1955)
* ''Tango'' (1955)
* ''Target with Four Faces'' (1955)
* ''Numbers in Color'' (1958–1959)
* ''Device circle'' (1959)
* ''False Start'' (1959)
* ''
Three Flags
''Three Flags'' is a 1958 painting by American artist Jasper Johns.
The work comprises three canvases painted with hot wax. The three canvases form a tiered arrangement, with each canvas approximately 25% smaller than the one below, thereby cre ...
'' (1958)
* ''Coat Hanger'' (1960)
* ''Painting With Two Balls'' (1960)
* ''Painted Bronze'' (1960)
* ''Target'' (1961)
* ''Painting With Ruler'' (1961)
* ''Painting Bitten by a Man'' (1961)
* ''The Critic Sees'' (1961)
* ''Study for Skin'' (1962)
* ''Diver'' (1962)
* ''Device'' (1961-1962)
* ''
Map
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
'' (1963)
* ''Periscope (Hart Crane)'' (1963)
* ''Figure Five'' (1963–1964)
* ''Voice'' (1966-1967)
* ''Walkaround Time'' (1968)
* ''Untitled (Skull)'' (1973)
* ''Titanic'' (1976–1978)
* ''Tantric Detail'' (1980)
* ''Usuyuki'' (1981)
* ''Perilous Night'' (1982)
* ''The Seasons'' (1986)
* ''Green Angel'' (1990)
* '' After Hans Holbein'' (1993)
* '' Bridge'' (1997)
* ''Regrets'' (2013)
* ''
Slice'' (2020)
In popular culture
*In "
Mom and Pop Art
"Mom and Pop Art" is the nineteenth episode of the tenth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It was first aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 11, 1999. In this episode, Homer inadvertently becomes ...
", a 1999 episode of the animated television series ''
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...
'', Johns guest stars as himself.
He is depicted as a thief who steals whatever he can get his hands on.
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*Busch, Julia M.
''A Decade of Sculpture: the New Media in the 1960s'' (The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia
Associated University Presses London, 1974)
;Further reading
* Bernstein, Roberta. ''Jasper Johns' Paintings and Sculptures, 1954–1974: "The Changing Focus of the Eye."''. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985.
* Bernstein, Roberta; Tone, Lilian; Johns, Jasper and Varnedoe, Kirk. ''Jasper Johns: A Retrospective'', The Museum of Modern Art, 2006.
*
Castleman, Riva. ''Jasper Johns: A Print Retrospective''. The Museum of Modern Art 1986.
* Crichton, Michael. ''Jasper Johns'', Whitney/Abrams, 1977 (out of print).
* Hess, Barbara. ''Jasper Johns. The Business of the Eye''. Taschen, Köln 2007.
* Johns, Jasper; Varnedoe, Kirk; Hollevoet, Christel; and Frank, Robert
''Jasper Johns: Writings, Sketchbook Notes, Interviews'' The Museum of Modern Art, 2002 (out of print).
*
Kozloff, Max. ''Jasper Johns'', Abrams, 1972. (out of print)
* Krauss, Rosalind E. and Knight, Christopher. "Split decisions: Jasper Johns in retrospect" ''Artforum'', September 1996
Findarticles.com*
Kuspit, Donald (2010). "Jasper Johns: The Graying of Modernism". ''Psychodrama: Modern Art as Group Therapy''. London: Ziggurat. pp. 417–425. .
* Orton, Fred. ''Figuring Jasper Johns'', Reaktion Books, 1994.
* Pearlman, Debra. ''Where Is Jasper Johns? (Adventures in Art)'', Prestel Publishing, 2006.
* Rosenberg, Harold. "Jasper Johns: Things the Mind Already Knows". ''Vogue'', 1964.
* Shapiro, David. ''Jasper Johns Drawings 1954–1984''. Abrams 1984 (out of print).
* Steinberg, Leo. ''Jasper Johns''. New York: George Wittenborn, 1963.
* Tomkins, Calvin. ''Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Artworld of our time''. Doubleday. 1980.
* Weiss, Jeffrey. ''Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955–1965'',
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous.
, Yale Universi ...
, 2007.
* Yau, John.
A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns'' D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, 2008.
External links
Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955–1965, an exhibition at the US National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC*
ttp://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/john/hd_john.htm Jasper Johns (born 1930)Timeline of Art History , The Metropolitan Museum of Art
*
Jasper Johns bio at artchive.comPBS Jasper Johns 2008Powers Art Center - A Showcase of Jasper Johns's Works on PaperJasper Johns's ''Three Flags'' at Art Beyond Sight (Art Education for the Blind)Review of the Whitney and the Philadelphia museums' 2021 showsat
Artnet News
Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City, in the United States, and is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly traded company based in Berlin that is listed on t ...
, October 12, 2021
The Formulaic Juxtapositions of Jasper Johns's 'Mind/Mirror' at
Frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
, November 12, 2021
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johns, Jasper
1930 births
Living people
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