101 Prints by Jasper Johns at The Phillips Collection
Washington, D.C.—One of the most celebrated artists of the modern era, Jasper Johns (b. 1930) transformed the field of printmaking. For over 50 years, he has tested the medium’s boundaries, reinventing subjects like targets, American flags, and images from art history in endless variation. The first exhibition of his work at The Phillips Collection features prints from each decade, with groundbreaking examples of lithography, intaglio, silkscreen, and lead relief. Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme is on view June 2 through Sept. 9, 2012.
The exhibition spans Johns’s entire printmaking career, beginning with his first experiments and culminating in 2011. In 1960, Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) founding director Tatyana Grosman encouraged Johns to work on lithographic stones, and he completed five prints and began his celebrated 0-9 series. Inspired, Johns saw printmaking as a way to transform ideas he had already developed in painting, drawings, and sculpture.
Johns mines art history, including his own work, to repeat and vary motifs. Fragments-According to What (1971), for example, excavates six details from his 1964 painting, According to What. The exhibition brings together all six prints from this important series. In 1976, Johns partnered with writer Samuel Beckett to create Foirades/Fizzles on view in the exhibition. The book includes 33 etchings, which revisit an earlier work by Johns and five text fragments by Beckett.
“Jasper Johns’s persistent experimentation not only transformed printmaking but set the standard for contemporary art,” says Phillips Director Dorothy Kosinski. “A champion of visionary American artists since 1921, the Phillips is proud to present over five decades of Johns’s graphic achievements, including our own The Critic Sees (1967). We are deeply grateful to the John and Maxine Belger Foundation whose collaboration makes a project on this scale possible.”
Opening with early prints like Target (1960), the exhibition unfolds to reveal the artist’s evolving interests. At the end of the 1960s, he experiments with etching in 1st Etchings Portfolio (1968). In the 1970s, an abstract aesthetic emerges with a crosshatch motif in works like Corpse and Mirror (1976). In the 1980s, autobiographical elements enter Johns's work such as a tracing of the artist’s shadow in The Seasons (1987). In the 1990s, images from art history appear in After Holbein (1993-94) and Green Angel (1991). Johns’s latest prints, Fragments of a Letter (2010) and Shrinky Dinks 1-4 (2011), layer text, cubist forms, and hand gestures from American Sign Language.
Johns’s collaborations with master printers, including those at ULAE in New York and Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles, are essential to his work. They empowered him to test methods unprecedented in the history of the medium. He said: “It’s the printmaking techniques that interest me . . . the technical innovation possible.” Six ingenious lead reliefs realized at Gemini G.E.L. from 1969 to 1970 are featured in the exhibition, as are several important collaborations with ULAE including Decoy (1971), considered Johns’s first offset print, Voice 2 (1982), as well as the artist’s newest prints.
Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme is organized by The Phillips Collection in collaboration with the John and Maxine Belger Foundation. Exhibition curator is Phillips Assistant Curator Renée Maurer.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, Jasper Johns is a central figure in modern and contemporary art. His work is represented in nearly every major museum collection and has been the subject of one-person exhibitions throughout the world. Born in Georgia in 1930 and raised in South Carolina, Johns grew up wanting to be an artist. He moved to New York City in his 20s and emerged as a force in the American art scene in 1958 with a solo show at Leo Castelli Gallery from which the Museum of Modern Art purchased three pieces. For 50 years Johns has challenged the possibilities of printmaking, painting, and sculpture, laying the groundwork for a wide range of experimental artists. He represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1988 and was awarded the Grand Prix. Johns currently lives and works in Sharon, Conn., and the Caribbean island of Saint Martin.
INSIDE THE PRINT PROCESS
For visitors curious about printmaking processes, the exhibition includes a room with lithography and etching presses, lithographic stones, and metal plates. Nearby, the film Jasper Johns: Take an Object (1990, dir. Hans Namuth and Judith Wechsler, 25 min.) narrated by John Cage, shows the artist at work. Public programs exploring printmaking include:
?? Thurs., June 14 (6:30 p.m.): National Gallery of Art consulting curator Ruth Fine leads a gallery talk on Johns’s diverse approaches to printmaking.
?? Thurs., June 21 (6:30 p.m.): Master printer Scip Barnhart leads an all-levels interactive printmaking demonstration in the exhibition print room.
?? Thurs., July 5 (5-8:30 p.m.): During Phillips after 5, master printer Scip Barnhart is available in the exhibition print room for informal conversations with visitors about printmaking techniques.
?? Thurs., July 12 (6:30 p.m.): Bill Goldston, ULAE Director since 1982, provides an insider look at Johns’s work with this fine art publisher.
?? Thurs., July 19 (6:30 and 7:30 p.m.): Screening of short film Decoy (1972, dir. Michael Blackwood, 18 min), which examines Johns’s methods as a printmaker and painter.
?? Thurs., Aug. 23 (7 p.m.): Assistant Curator Renée Maurer leads a gallery talk on Jasper Johns’s printmaking legacy, from his iconic targets, flags, and numbers, to his new work.
Program details and ticket information: www.phillipscollection.org/calendar
CITYWIDE EVENTS????
John Cage Centennial Festival????
This year marks the centennial of avant-garde composer John Cage’s birth. Cage was a close friend and collaborator of Jasper Johns. International celebrations are underway, including D.C.’s citywide John Cage Centennial Festival. Concurrently with Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme, The Phillips Collection presents John Cage at the Phillips, an installation of three watercolors by Cage with other works from the collection by contemporaries Mark Tobey and Morris Graves. Related public programs include:
?? Thurs., Aug. 9 (6 p.m.): At “Creative Voices DC: John Cage,” a panel of artists and collectors share their experiences of working with the composer and reflect on his friendship with Johns.
?? Thurs., Sept. 6 (6 p.m.): Violinist Irvine Arditti performs Cage’s complete Freeman Etudes for the first time in the U.S. with real-time computer sound spatialization by Jaime Oliver.
Program details and ticket information: www.phillipscollection.org/calendar
Modern American Genius
Celebrate modern American genius on and off the National Mall this summer with exhibitions at The Phillips Collection, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. Encounter the work of three trailblazers—Richard Diebenkorn, Jasper Johns, and Barnett Newman—whose cutting-edge paintings and works on paper helped make American art a significant global force.
Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme??
The Phillips Collection??
June 2-Sept. 9, 2012????
In the Tower: Barnett Newman??
National Gallery of Art??
June 10-Nov. 25, 2012????
Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series??
Corcoran Gallery of Art??
June 30-Sept. 23, 2012????
Join the conversation with all three museums??on Twitter at #ModAmericanGenius.
VISITOR INFORMATION
?? Hours: Tues.-Sat., 10 a.m. -5 p.m.; Thurs. extended hours, 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
?? Closed: Mondays and Independence Day (Wed., July 4)
?? Location: 1600 21st Street, NW (at Q Street)
?? Metro: Red Line, Dupont Circle Station (Q Street exit) and via several bus lines
?? Admission: $12
?? Discounted Admission: $10 for seniors (62 and over) and students (with valid ID)
?? FREE Admission:
?? During Jazz ‘n Families Fun Days on Sat., June 2 and Sun., June 3
?? For active duty military personnel and their families as part of the Blue Star Museums program Memorial Day (May 28) through Labor Day (Sept. 3)
?? Kids (18 and under) and Phillips members
?? Tickets: Available at the museum and www.phillipscollection.org
ABOUT THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION
The Phillips Collection is one of the world’s most distinguished collections of impressionist and modern American and European art. Stressing the continuity between art of the past and present, it offers a strikingly original and experimental approach to modern art by combining works of different nationalities and periods in displays that change frequently. The setting is similarly unconventional, featuring small rooms, a domestic scale, and a personal atmosphere. Artists represented in the collection include Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Claude Monet, Honoré Daumier, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery, Jacob Lawrence, and Richard Diebenkorn, among others. The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art, has an active collecting program and regularly organizes acclaimed special exhibitions, many of which travel internationally. The Intersections series features projects by contemporary artists, responding to art and spaces in the museum. The Phillips also produces award-winning education programs for K-12 teachers and students, as well as for adults. The museum’s Center for the Study of Modern Art explores new ways of thinking about art and the nature of creativity, through artist visits and lectures, and provides a forum for scholars through courses, postdoctoral fellowships, and internships. Since 1941, the museum has hosted Sunday Concerts in its wood-paneled Music Room. The Phillips Collection is a private, non-government museum, supported primarily by donations.
The exhibition spans Johns’s entire printmaking career, beginning with his first experiments and culminating in 2011. In 1960, Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) founding director Tatyana Grosman encouraged Johns to work on lithographic stones, and he completed five prints and began his celebrated 0-9 series. Inspired, Johns saw printmaking as a way to transform ideas he had already developed in painting, drawings, and sculpture.
Johns mines art history, including his own work, to repeat and vary motifs. Fragments-According to What (1971), for example, excavates six details from his 1964 painting, According to What. The exhibition brings together all six prints from this important series. In 1976, Johns partnered with writer Samuel Beckett to create Foirades/Fizzles on view in the exhibition. The book includes 33 etchings, which revisit an earlier work by Johns and five text fragments by Beckett.
“Jasper Johns’s persistent experimentation not only transformed printmaking but set the standard for contemporary art,” says Phillips Director Dorothy Kosinski. “A champion of visionary American artists since 1921, the Phillips is proud to present over five decades of Johns’s graphic achievements, including our own The Critic Sees (1967). We are deeply grateful to the John and Maxine Belger Foundation whose collaboration makes a project on this scale possible.”
Opening with early prints like Target (1960), the exhibition unfolds to reveal the artist’s evolving interests. At the end of the 1960s, he experiments with etching in 1st Etchings Portfolio (1968). In the 1970s, an abstract aesthetic emerges with a crosshatch motif in works like Corpse and Mirror (1976). In the 1980s, autobiographical elements enter Johns's work such as a tracing of the artist’s shadow in The Seasons (1987). In the 1990s, images from art history appear in After Holbein (1993-94) and Green Angel (1991). Johns’s latest prints, Fragments of a Letter (2010) and Shrinky Dinks 1-4 (2011), layer text, cubist forms, and hand gestures from American Sign Language.
Johns’s collaborations with master printers, including those at ULAE in New York and Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles, are essential to his work. They empowered him to test methods unprecedented in the history of the medium. He said: “It’s the printmaking techniques that interest me . . . the technical innovation possible.” Six ingenious lead reliefs realized at Gemini G.E.L. from 1969 to 1970 are featured in the exhibition, as are several important collaborations with ULAE including Decoy (1971), considered Johns’s first offset print, Voice 2 (1982), as well as the artist’s newest prints.
Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme is organized by The Phillips Collection in collaboration with the John and Maxine Belger Foundation. Exhibition curator is Phillips Assistant Curator Renée Maurer.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, Jasper Johns is a central figure in modern and contemporary art. His work is represented in nearly every major museum collection and has been the subject of one-person exhibitions throughout the world. Born in Georgia in 1930 and raised in South Carolina, Johns grew up wanting to be an artist. He moved to New York City in his 20s and emerged as a force in the American art scene in 1958 with a solo show at Leo Castelli Gallery from which the Museum of Modern Art purchased three pieces. For 50 years Johns has challenged the possibilities of printmaking, painting, and sculpture, laying the groundwork for a wide range of experimental artists. He represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1988 and was awarded the Grand Prix. Johns currently lives and works in Sharon, Conn., and the Caribbean island of Saint Martin.
INSIDE THE PRINT PROCESS
For visitors curious about printmaking processes, the exhibition includes a room with lithography and etching presses, lithographic stones, and metal plates. Nearby, the film Jasper Johns: Take an Object (1990, dir. Hans Namuth and Judith Wechsler, 25 min.) narrated by John Cage, shows the artist at work. Public programs exploring printmaking include:
?? Thurs., June 14 (6:30 p.m.): National Gallery of Art consulting curator Ruth Fine leads a gallery talk on Johns’s diverse approaches to printmaking.
?? Thurs., June 21 (6:30 p.m.): Master printer Scip Barnhart leads an all-levels interactive printmaking demonstration in the exhibition print room.
?? Thurs., July 5 (5-8:30 p.m.): During Phillips after 5, master printer Scip Barnhart is available in the exhibition print room for informal conversations with visitors about printmaking techniques.
?? Thurs., July 12 (6:30 p.m.): Bill Goldston, ULAE Director since 1982, provides an insider look at Johns’s work with this fine art publisher.
?? Thurs., July 19 (6:30 and 7:30 p.m.): Screening of short film Decoy (1972, dir. Michael Blackwood, 18 min), which examines Johns’s methods as a printmaker and painter.
?? Thurs., Aug. 23 (7 p.m.): Assistant Curator Renée Maurer leads a gallery talk on Jasper Johns’s printmaking legacy, from his iconic targets, flags, and numbers, to his new work.
Program details and ticket information: www.phillipscollection.org/calendar
CITYWIDE EVENTS????
John Cage Centennial Festival????
This year marks the centennial of avant-garde composer John Cage’s birth. Cage was a close friend and collaborator of Jasper Johns. International celebrations are underway, including D.C.’s citywide John Cage Centennial Festival. Concurrently with Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme, The Phillips Collection presents John Cage at the Phillips, an installation of three watercolors by Cage with other works from the collection by contemporaries Mark Tobey and Morris Graves. Related public programs include:
?? Thurs., Aug. 9 (6 p.m.): At “Creative Voices DC: John Cage,” a panel of artists and collectors share their experiences of working with the composer and reflect on his friendship with Johns.
?? Thurs., Sept. 6 (6 p.m.): Violinist Irvine Arditti performs Cage’s complete Freeman Etudes for the first time in the U.S. with real-time computer sound spatialization by Jaime Oliver.
Program details and ticket information: www.phillipscollection.org/calendar
Modern American Genius
Celebrate modern American genius on and off the National Mall this summer with exhibitions at The Phillips Collection, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. Encounter the work of three trailblazers—Richard Diebenkorn, Jasper Johns, and Barnett Newman—whose cutting-edge paintings and works on paper helped make American art a significant global force.
Jasper Johns: Variations on a Theme??
The Phillips Collection??
June 2-Sept. 9, 2012????
In the Tower: Barnett Newman??
National Gallery of Art??
June 10-Nov. 25, 2012????
Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series??
Corcoran Gallery of Art??
June 30-Sept. 23, 2012????
Join the conversation with all three museums??on Twitter at #ModAmericanGenius.
VISITOR INFORMATION
?? Hours: Tues.-Sat., 10 a.m. -5 p.m.; Thurs. extended hours, 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
?? Closed: Mondays and Independence Day (Wed., July 4)
?? Location: 1600 21st Street, NW (at Q Street)
?? Metro: Red Line, Dupont Circle Station (Q Street exit) and via several bus lines
?? Admission: $12
?? Discounted Admission: $10 for seniors (62 and over) and students (with valid ID)
?? FREE Admission:
?? During Jazz ‘n Families Fun Days on Sat., June 2 and Sun., June 3
?? For active duty military personnel and their families as part of the Blue Star Museums program Memorial Day (May 28) through Labor Day (Sept. 3)
?? Kids (18 and under) and Phillips members
?? Tickets: Available at the museum and www.phillipscollection.org
ABOUT THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION
The Phillips Collection is one of the world’s most distinguished collections of impressionist and modern American and European art. Stressing the continuity between art of the past and present, it offers a strikingly original and experimental approach to modern art by combining works of different nationalities and periods in displays that change frequently. The setting is similarly unconventional, featuring small rooms, a domestic scale, and a personal atmosphere. Artists represented in the collection include Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Claude Monet, Honoré Daumier, Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery, Jacob Lawrence, and Richard Diebenkorn, among others. The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art, has an active collecting program and regularly organizes acclaimed special exhibitions, many of which travel internationally. The Intersections series features projects by contemporary artists, responding to art and spaces in the museum. The Phillips also produces award-winning education programs for K-12 teachers and students, as well as for adults. The museum’s Center for the Study of Modern Art explores new ways of thinking about art and the nature of creativity, through artist visits and lectures, and provides a forum for scholars through courses, postdoctoral fellowships, and internships. Since 1941, the museum has hosted Sunday Concerts in its wood-paneled Music Room. The Phillips Collection is a private, non-government museum, supported primarily by donations.
