Jasper Johns

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Armand P. Bartos

0 through 9 http://www.moma.org/collection/works/65207

Gift of Edgar B. Howard (through the Associates of the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books)

0 through 9 http://www.moma.org/collection/works/74495

Untitled https://www.wikiart.org/en/jasper-johns/untitled-1978

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

Ale Cans from 1st Etchings http://www.moma.org/collection/works/66139

trial proof for RISD poster

Recent Still Life https://collections.artsmia.org/art/67484/

Gift of Celeste Bartos

Untitled http://www.moma.org/collection/works/69149

Gift of Celeste and Armand Bartos (in perpetuity)

Leg (a) (plate, folio 7 verso) from Foirades/Fizzles http://www.moma.org/collection/works/17388

Once asked about his use of numerals as subjects for painting, Johns replied, “They seemed to me preformed,conventional, depersonalized, factual, exterior elements.” That is, they freed Johns from any obligation to construct a pictorial narrative or express his interior life. Despite the ease with which we recognize the number 4, Johns plays with its meaning in the title: the word figure winks at the tradition of “figural” (or representational) painting, and the number 4 sounds like the word for, leaving the title entirely open-ended, like an unfinished sentence. Meanwhile the monumental 4 of the painting itself is almost lost amid the lively patchwork of brushstrokes. Gift of Edlis Neeson Collection

Figure 4 https://www.artic.edu/artworks/229352/

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

Light Bulb I from 1st Etchings-2nd State http://www.moma.org/collection/works/62026

Usuyuki

Usuyuki https://www.wikiart.org/en/jasper-johns/usuyuki-1979

Gift of the artist

Ventriloquist http://www.moma.org/collection/works/61948

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

4 from 0-9 http://www.moma.org/collection/works/70493

Presented by the American Fund for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of Judy and Kenneth Dayton 2004

The Seasons (Winter) http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/johns-the-seasons-winter-p13000

Gift of Celeste Bartos

Savarin 6 (Blue) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/75478

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

Target II http://www.moma.org/collection/works/63830

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

Ale Cans http://www.moma.org/collection/works/72254

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

0 from 0-9 http://www.moma.org/collection/works/70464

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

6 from 0-9 http://www.moma.org/collection/works/70495

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

Target I http://www.moma.org/collection/works/66159

The Associates Fund

Land's End http://www.moma.org/collection/works/68060

Acquired through the generosity of Mary M. and Sash A. Spencer

Shrinky Dink 1 http://www.moma.org/collection/works/147142

Gift of the artist

Ventriloquist http://www.moma.org/collection/works/61950

Jasper Johns has often affixed objects to the surfaces of his paintings in an ongoing search for non-illusionistic ways of mediating between the flat plane of the picture and a fully dimensional world. For his Catenary series (1997–2003), of which Near the Lagoon is the largest and last work, Johns formed catenaries—a term used to describe the curve assumed by a cord suspended freely from two points—by tacking ordinary household string to the canvas or its supports. In Near the Lagoon, the string activates and engages the abstract, collaged field of multitonal gray behind it, casting an actual shadow on the canvas, in addition to the painted ones that Johns rendered by hand; the string even creates a rut where the artist embedded it into and later pulled it out of the encaustic. Through prior gift of Muriel Kallis Newman in memory of Albert Hardy Newman

Near the Lagoon https://www.artic.edu/artworks/184095/

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

Hatteras http://www.moma.org/collection/works/70314

Gift of Celeste Bartos

Light Bulb http://www.moma.org/collection/works/64544

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

Untitled http://www.moma.org/collection/works/62097

John B. Turner Fund

Figure 5 from Black Numeral Series http://www.moma.org/collection/works/74619

Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation

9 from 0-9 http://www.moma.org/collection/works/70489

Gift of Emily Landau

Ventriloquist http://www.moma.org/collection/works/62953

While Jasper Johns has worked with stencils of alphabet letters since the 1950s, this is his only painting that shows a single sequence from A to Z. The artist made Alphabet the same year in which he introduced riots of primary color—augmented by touches of green, pink, orange, pale blue, gray, brown, black, and white—into his work. We might try to read this painting in order, letter by letter, from top left to bottom right. But the jumble of strokes, daubs, smudges, and collaged fragments of painted paper scatters our eyes across the animated surface, challenging any sense of sequential progress. In this way, two different stylistic approaches—orderly grids of stenciled forms versus brushy gestures—are set against one another. Gift of Edlis Neeson Collection

Alphabet https://www.artic.edu/artworks/229353/