Matthew Marks Gallery

Jasper Johns

When Jasper Johns had his first one-person exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery — in 1958, at the age of twenty-seven — its impact was widespread and immediate. His work signaled a new direction for contemporary art, one that would lead away from Abstract Expressionism and forward to Pop, Minimalism, Conceptual art, and beyond. The Museum of Modern Art acquired four works directly from the show: paintings of targets, flags, and numerals (subjects Johns called “things the mind already knows”).

In the six decades since, Johns has continued to explore new symbols and images, building an extensive personal lexicon that is sometimes enigmatic but always unmistakably his own. A single painted motif might reappear decades later in a sculpture, a drawing, a print, or even in another painting. “My experience of life is that it’s very fragmented; certain kinds of things happen, and in another place a different kind of thing occurs,” he has explained. “I would like my work to have some vivid indication of those differences.”

Jasper Johns (b. 1930) grew up in South Carolina and moved to New York in 1953, where he met Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham. The artistic ideas of these four friends and sometime collaborators helped establish a new American avant-garde, redefining the role of artistic intent through the use of found imagery and chance. Johns’s work in particular has had a profound impact on American culture. He has been the subject of one-person exhibitions at museums around the world, including career surveys at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Royal Academy in London, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Selected Works

Exhibitions

JASPER JOHNS
New Works on Paper

September 25–October 30, 2021

526 West 22nd Street
New York

JASPER JOHNS
Recent Paintings & Works on Paper

February 9–April 6, 2019

522 West 22nd Street
New York

JASPER JOHNS
Monotypes

May 5–June 25, 2016

522 West 22nd Street
New York

JASPER JOHNS
Numbers, 09, and 5 Postcards

November 2, 2012–January 5, 2013

1062 North Orange Grove
Los Angeles

JASPER JOHNS
Recent Prints

November 2, 2012–January 5, 2013

7818 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles

JASPER JOHNS
New Sculpture and Works on Paper

May 7–July 1, 2011

522 West 22nd Street
New York

JASPER JOHNS
Drawings 1997–2007

February 2–April 12, 2008

522 West 22nd Street
New York

JASPER JOHNS
Catenary

May 7–June 25, 2005

522 West 22nd Street
New York

Group Exhibitions

ONE HUNDRED DRAWINGS

November 8, 2019–January 18, 2020

523 West 24th Street
New York

THE CRITIC

September 13–October 26, 2019

523 West 24th Street
New York

PAINTING: NOW AND FOREVER, PART III

June 28–August 17, 2018

522 West 22nd Street
526 West 22nd Street
523 West 24th Street
New York

ARTISTS FOR ARTISTS
51st Anniversary Exhibition to Benefit the Foundation for Contemporary Arts

December 13, 2014–January 10, 2015

526 West 22nd Street
New York

A DRAWING SHOW

October 4–November 29, 2014

526 West 22nd Street
New York

SCULPTURE
Katharina Fritsch, Robert Gober, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Martin Puryear, Charles Ray

February 8–April 19, 2014

523 West 24th Street
New York

THE FOUNDATION FOR ART AND PRESERVATION IN EMBASSIES'
Lee Kimche McGrath Original Print Collection

October 6–October 13, 2012

7818 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles

SMALL SCULPTURE

September 23–October 28, 2006

523 West 24th Street
New York

RECENT DRAWINGS
Robert Gober, Roni Horn, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Ken Price, Charles Ray, Terry Winters

January 14–February 25, 2006

523 West 24th Street
New York

100 DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
Tenth Anniversary Exhibition

November 3–December 22, 2001

523 West 24th Street
New York

OPEN SECRETS
Seventy Pictures on Paper, 1815 to the Present

November 19–December 28, 1996

523 West 24th Street
New York

ARTISTS’ SKETCHBOOKS

March 20–May 4, 1991

1018 Madison Avenue
New York

Books

JASPER JOHNS
Recent Paintings & Works on Paper

JASPER JOHNS
Catalogue Raisonné of Monotypes

JASPER JOHNS
Numbers, 0–9, and 5 Postcards

JASPER JOHNS
New Sculpture and Works on Paper

JASPER JOHNS
Drawings 1997–2007

JASPER JOHNS
Catenary

ONE HUNDRED DRAWINGS

100 DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
Tenth Anniversary Exhibition

OPEN SECRETS
Seventy Pictures on Paper, 1815 to the Present

ARTISTS’ SKETCHBOOKS

Posters

JASPER JOHNS
New Sculpture and Works on Paper

out of print

JASPER JOHNS
Drawings 1997–2007

out of print

PAINTING: NOW AND FOREVER, PART III