Jasper Johns

Surveying four decades of work from one of the most important artists of mid-to-late 20th century Jasper Johns (born 1930) has spent 70 years developing a distinctive lexicon of symbols and images gathered from art history, popular culture and personal experience. With a newly commissioned text by Hilton Als, Drawings 1982-2021 presents 25 works in a variety of media over the last 40 years that demonstrate the mastery of technique and material, and the continuous preoccupation with questions of his own past, that are foundational to the evolution of Johns' rich and enigmatic oeuvre. Revisiting some of his most iconic motifs--the American flag and crosshatch, flagstone and harlequin patterns--he moves back and forth through other familiar imagery and references to artists such as de Kooning, da Vinci, Picasso and Rodin, reconfiguring and recombining them while steadily incorporating new subjects, including a grieving soldier, skeletons and the cosmos.

Surveying four decades of work from one of the most important artists of mid-to-late 20th century Jasper Johns (born 1930) has spent 70 years developing a distinctive lexicon of symbols and images gathered from art history, popular culture and personal experience. With a newly commissioned text by Hilton Als, Drawings 1982-2021 presents 25 works in a variety of media over the last 40 years that demonstrate the mastery of technique and material, and the continuous preoccupation with questions of his own past, that are foundational to the evolution of Johns' rich and enigmatic oeuvre. Revisiting some of his most iconic motifs--the American flag and crosshatch, flagstone and harlequin patterns--he moves back and forth through other familiar imagery and references to artists such as de Kooning, da Vinci, Picasso and Rodin, reconfiguring and recombining them while steadily incorporating new subjects, including a grieving soldier, skeletons and the cosmos.

The essential five-volume resource on the painting and sculpture of one of the world’s foremost contemporary artists For more than 60 years, Jasper Johns (b. 1930) has remained a singular figure in contemporary art. His most widely influential work—depictions of everyday objects and signs such as flags, targets, flashlights, and lightbulbs—helped change the face of the art world in the 1950s by introducing subject matter that stood in contrast to the prevailing style of Abstract Expressionism. In subsequent decades, Johns’s art has increasingly engaged issues of memory and mortality, often incorporating references to admired artistic predecessors. This definitive 5-volume catalogue raisonné documents the entire body of painting and sculpture made by Johns from 1954 through 2014, encompassing 355 paintings and 86 sculptures. Each work is illustrated with a full-page reproduction, nearly all of which were commissioned expressly for this publication. A decade of research underpins the project, with thorough documentation of each object and an overarching monograph that represents the most comprehensive study of the artist’s work to date. All facets of the catalogue reflect the input of the artist, who worked closely with the author at all stages.

The essential five-volume resource on the painting and sculpture of one of the world’s foremost contemporary artists For more than 60 years, Jasper Johns (b. 1930) has remained a singular figure in contemporary art. His most widely influential work—depictions of everyday objects and signs such as flags, targets, flashlights, and lightbulbs—helped change the face of the art world in the 1950s by introducing subject matter that stood in contrast to the prevailing style of Abstract Expressionism. In subsequent decades, Johns’s art has increasingly engaged issues of memory and mortality, often incorporating references to admired artistic predecessors. This definitive 5-volume catalogue raisonné documents the entire body of painting and sculpture made by Johns from 1954 through 2014, encompassing 355 paintings and 86 sculptures. Each work is illustrated with a full-page reproduction, nearly all of which were commissioned expressly for this publication. A decade of research underpins the project, with thorough documentation of each object and an overarching monograph that represents the most comprehensive study of the artist’s work to date. All facets of the catalogue reflect the input of the artist, who worked closely with the author at all stages.