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Jasper Johns

Flags I, 1973

Not on View

Medium

color screenprint on J. B. Green wove paper

Dimensions

sheet: 69.9 x 90 cm (27 1/2 x 35 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

ULAE, no. 128

Accession Number

1994.82.8

Artists / Makers

Jasper Johns (artist) American, born 1930

Hiroshi Kawanishi (printer) Japanese, active second half 20th century

Kenjiro Nonaka (printer) Japanese, active second half 20th century

Takeshi Shimada (printer) Japanese, active second half of 20th century

Simca Print Artists (publisher)

Image Use

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Copyright

Published by Jasper Johns and Simca Print Artists, Inc. © Jasper Johns and Simca Print Artists, Inc./Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Overview

Jasper Johns has almost always selected the raw material of his art from preexisting images, or what he has called “things the mind already knows.” His first flag painting, created in 1954–1955, launched his career. Johns has said that using ready-made designs such as flags, targets, and numerals that are “seen and not looked at, not examined” gave him “room to work on other levels.” As flat objects, flags could be recognizably portrayed on a two-dimensional surface. Here, however, Johns’s doubling of the image and his handling of the medium—with scrapes and scratches, drips, and blotches of green color—make it clear that this is a work of art, not an actual flag.

Inscription

lower left in graphite: AP 3/7; lower right in graphite: J Johns '73

Marks and Labels

embossed lower left: [Simca Press]

Provenance

Robert and Jane Meyerhoff, Phoenix, Maryland; acquired 1994 by the National Gallery of Art

Associated Names

Meyerhoff, Robert E.

Exhibition History

2016: Three Centuries of American Prints: from the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, 2016-2017, no. 128.

Bibliography

1978: Field, Richard S. Jasper Johns: Prints 1970-1977. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1978, no. 173.

1994: Field, Richard S. The Prints of Jasper Johns, 1960-1993: A Catalogue Raisonné. West Islip, New York: Universal Limited Art Editions, 1994, no. 128.