Jasper Johns

by Michael Crichton, Jasper Johns (Artist)

This extraordinary book pairs two major talents of our time, the painter/sculptor/printmaker Jasper Johns and the physician/novelist/filmmaker Michael Crichton. Since it first appeared in 1977, Michael Crichton's Jasper Johns has been considered the preeminent study of one of America's foremost living artists. Abrams is proud now to publish this completely revised, expanded, and updated version of a modern classic. Jasper Johns has often been called an "artist's artist." In his use of found objects and commonplace imagery, he creates tantalizing, intellectually demanding works of unparalleled originality and uncommon beauty. His new work, with its puns, optical illusions, and embedded images ranging from George Ohr pots to the Isenheim Altarpiece to Picasso etchings, has attracted an unprecedented level of intense critical attention. Here Michael Crichton, author of The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, and Rising Sun, among other bestsellers, brings to bear his own extraordinary gifts, particularly his analytic skill and his superior abilities as narrator and storyteller. Crichton, who has known Johns and collected his work for more than twenty years, offers a dazzling succession of intimate glimpses of Johns' potent and seemingly contradictory aspects, many of them highlighted by interviews with the artist, his dealers, and distinguished contemporary critics. He also conducts a powerful, sensitive, and wide reaching critique of Johns' work - and in so doing offers an intriguing investigation into the very nature of the artistic response. Accompanying Crichton's text are 186 black-and-white illustrations, including works by Johns, photographs of him, and comparative examples. Then comes a spectacular display of 231 paintings, prints, sculptures, and drawings by Jasper Johns, ranging from his earliest pieces to his most recent works, some forty years later. Of these, 128 are reproduced in duotone and 103 in full color, including six magnificent foldout pages - t

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Biography

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

John Michael Crichton was an American author, screenwriter, and filmmaker whose prolific career left an indelible mark on popular culture and speculative fiction. Raised on Long Island, he displayed a precocious talent for writing, publishing an article in The New York Times at sixteen. Initially enrolling at Harvard as an English major, he switched to biological anthropology after discovering a preference for scientific study over literature. He graduated summa cum laude and received a fellowship to lecture in anthropology at Cambridge. Later attending Harvard Medical School, he earned his MD but chose not to practice, dedicating himself to writing instead. His medical background profoundly influenced his novels, providing authentic scientific and technical underpinnings that became a hallmark of his work. Crichton began writing under pseudonyms, producing suspenseful thrillers as John Lange, including Odds On, Scratch One, and Easy Go, and as Jeffrey Hudson with A Case of Need, earning him an Edgar Award. His first major success under his own name, The Andromeda Strain, established his signature blend of scientific authenticity, tension, and exploration of technological hazards, leading to its film adaptation. Over his career, he wrote 25 novels, including The Terminal Man, The Great Train Robbery, Congo, Sphere, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure, The Lost World, Airframe, Timeline, Prey, State of Fear, and Next, several adapted into major films, with four additional works published posthumously. Crichton also made significant contributions to film and television. He wrote and directed Westworld, pioneering the use of 2D computer-generated imagery, and later directed Coma, The First Great Train Robbery, Looker, and Runaway. He created the influential medical drama ER, which he executive produced and developed with Steven Spielberg, achieving critical and commercial success. Many of his novels, most famously Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World, became cultural phenomena, combining imaginative adventure with grounded scientific speculation, often exploring humanity’s overreach in genetics, biotechnology, and complex systems. His literary style was notable for integrating meticulous scientific detail, suspense, and moral cautionary themes. His works frequently addressed the failure of complex systems—biological, technological, or organizational—demonstrating the unpredictable consequences of human hubris. Employing techniques such as first-person narratives, false documents, fictionalized scientific reports, and assembling expert teams to tackle crises, Crichton created immersive stories appealing to both popular and scholarly audiences. His exploration of genetics, paleontology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence revealed both fascination and caution about humanity’s technological ambitions, while his early non-fiction, such as Five Patients and Electronic Life, reflected his scientific insight and forward-thinking approach to computers and programming. Standing 6 feet 9 inches tall, Crichton experienced social isolation in adolescence and later pursued meditation and consultations with psychics, cultivating a lifelong interest in human consciousness and alternative experiences. A workaholic, he approached writing with disciplined ritualistic methodology, often retreating entirely to complete a novel in six or seven weeks. He was married five times, fathered two children, and maintained a wide-ranging collection of 20th-century American art. Crichton engaged in political and scientific discourse, particularly regarding global warming, where he was an outspoken skeptic and testified before the U.S. Senate. He contributed significantly to the discussion of intellectual property, technology, and environmental policy, coining concepts such as the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. Throughout his life, he received numerous awards, including Edgar Awards, a Peabody Award for ER, an Aca

Reviews

[Kyriakos Sorokkou]

Διαβάστε και την κριτική μου στα Ελληνικά στις βιβλιοαλχημείες.

This book has a story.
It was my first order from a non-Cyprus based company, early in May after the lock-down.

It got lost in the mail and by early August I stopped hoping of it ever arriving.

But early this month I got a notice from the post office about a package. I knew I hadn't bought anything for at least 2 months so I felt it was this book.



And it was!
My last nonfiction by Crichton, an out of print, and pretty rare edition. The spine was damaged but I fixed it and managed to read the book comfortably (as comfortable as an 11-inches-tall hardcover coffee-table book can be).

This was my last first-read of a Crichton book for 2020.
The rest will be rereads until August when I'll be reading his last posthumous novel for the first time «Dragon Teeth», thus concluding my Crichton Project.

If you are not a Crichton fan, or a fan of art books, or to be more precise a fan of abstract -expressionism / pop art and the like, this is not an ideal book for you.

Out of the 248 pages only 100 are the actual text by Crichton. The rest 100-something are most of Jasper Johns's works many covering one or two pages, a vast majority of them in full colour.

Crichton divided this biography in three chapters:
1) Impressions of the Artist where we discover who exactly is Jasper Johns,
2) A Brief History of the Work, where we learn about Johns's development as a painter and sculptor, and
3) The function of the observer which is more philosophical than the previous two, a chapter where Crichton explores themes like: artist's conception vs viewer's perception, perceived reality vs painted re-creation, reality vs imagination, observation, visual paradoxes, and many more.

Crichton owned himself a few of Johns' works and in this book his ability as a writer combined with his ability as an art observer gave us something more than a simple artist's-biography.

It explored themes that we might have thought about but never articulated:
Is abstract art abstract, if its intentioned and has a pattern?

I'm glad I finally received this book so I won't have to buy it again.
My last rare Crichton book is finally part of my collection (excluding his two published screenplays I have yet to buy:Westworld, Twister).

[Alex V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

RIP Michael Crichton

Among his many accomplishments in the world of fiction, movies, and television, Michael Crichton also wrote one of the finest, most readable artist monographs ever penned. His Jasper Johns goes beyond the usual exhaustive detail of the artist's early life and breathy impenetrability about the work that one usually flips through to get to the color plates, Crichton loved this artist and his art and what it meant in the grand scheme of culture. If only we had more writers with a sense of audience and as lucid a writing voice as Crichton's illuminating the arts.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really surprised how much I enjoyed this. Before reading it, the only thing I knew about Jasper Johns was that he was a painter Michael Crichton wrote a book about. I'm not typically a fan of this type of art but the story of how Johns' work unfolds throughout his career is actually quite fascinating and some of his motifs are quite interesting. I also liked his personality and I thought Crichton told the story really well. Very glad I picked this one up.

[CD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still a a 5 star. This time I read a newer edition than my own to see if there were many differences. Some of the prints are different (better&worse), and the format is a bit different.

What a formal art catalog biography of an artist, in this case living, should be including references and a wide range of plates of the work referenced and discussed.

[Er Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I noticed my library had the book while I was searching for Michael Crichton novels. It actually made me realize how much I dislike the pop art movement from the '50s/'60s. Some of the interviews with Jasper Johns were amusing, but overall this book was not very engaging.

[Jaynie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do not bother. This book is out of print and is for fans of the artist, not Crichton! He just wrote the descripts and a forward or something. HE liked Johns, they were friends or something.