Jasper Johns (b.1930) is one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. He had a major influence on the trajectory of American post-war art, encouraging the demise of Abstract Expressionism and the introduction of Pop Art.
In the 1950s, Johns rose to prominence with his unconventional painting approach and breakthrough subject matter. He appropriated everyday objects and simple schemas like maps, targets, letters, and numbers.
These banal and ubiquitous elements were frequently encountered in daily life but were irrelevant to art. By repeatedly employing and experimenting with these motifs, Johns turned them into a continuous series. Johns helped welcome representation back into painting and influenced the rise of Pop Art, which embraced depictions of everyday objects.
Ironically after nearly two decades of having figuration in his artwork, Johns began to embrace pure abstraction. “Evian" is an outstanding example of John's signature hybrid of the two methods. Johns explains: "There may or may not be an idea, and the meaning may just be that the painting exists".
In 1971 on the Long Island Expressway, Johns was captivated by a pattern on the side of a passing car door. Although it was fleeting, Johns was transfixed by seeing a version of cross-hatching: interlocking sections of diagonal, parallel lines. During the next decade (1972-1984) Johns enthusiastically embraced the crosshatching motif, realizing it with different colors, densities, and layers.
In this lithograph on Angoumois paper, a minimal color field made of shades of grey and green is interrupted by several recognizable forms. The scattered imagery floats across the composition, offering a discrete glimpse of a clothes-hanger, a wheel, and a skull.
Throughout Johns' illustrious career he earned numerous honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Arts, and the title of "foremost living artist" by The New York Times.
Johns' works are highly sought by collectors and regularly sell for millions of dollars at auction. In 2010 one of Johns' works was sold for an astonishing $110 million. He has regularly been considered the most valuable living artist.
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"Evian"
USA, 1972
Signed, dated, and numbered by the artist
Contains publishers blindstamps
Lithograph in colors on Georges Duchene Calcaire paper, with full margins
Edition 21/64
43.25"H 28.25"W (work)
51"H 36"W (framed)
Very good condition.
Publisher: Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles
