Untitled
Date2001
Mediumintaglio print in 2 colors on Tokusuki Torinoko paper
DimensionsPlate: 18 × 26 1/2 inches (45.7 × 67.3 cm)
Sight: 25 7/8 × 33 5/8 inches (65.7 × 85.4 cm)
Framed: 30 7/8 × 38 5/8 × 1 7/8 inches (78.4 × 98.1 × 4.8 cm)
Credit LineKirk Varnedoe Collection, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, Gift of Jasper Johns.
Object number2006.12
Copyright© 2024 Jasper Johns and ULAE / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, Published by Universal Limited Art Editions.
The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextRaised in Allendale, South Carolina, Jasper Johns studied briefly at the University of South Carolina before moving to New York. There he met artist Robert Rauschenberg, dancer Merce Cunningham, and composer John Cage, all of whom would greatly impact his career. Johns’s first one-man show was held in 1958 at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York, after which his work rocketed into the limelight. His paintings of ordinary emblems, such as targets, maps, numbers, and (perhaps most famously) the American flag, moved away from the Abstract Expressionism that was popular at the time and were precursors of the Pop Art movement that would rise to prominence in the 1960s. Johns would go on to create paintings composed of patterned abstract strokes resembling hatch marks in the 1970s. The 1980s brought on a return to realistic figurative painting, with a great interest in incorporating images created by other artists throughout history.
Johns has created prints, such as Untitled, in the Varnedoe Collection, since 1960. Incorporating an image of a partially-reproduced antique family studio portrait, a patch of stripes that recalls Johns’s famous American flag paintings, references to cave painting and an American Indian teepee, and a swirling, Milky Way-like design, this print is representative of Johns’s typically complex and many-layered compositions.
