Jasper Johns / a Retrospective

by Kirk Varnedoe

Published to accompany a major exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1996, this study of Jasper Johns reproduces 240 of his works. It is arranged in sections to allow comparison of paintings, drawings and prints from each period of his career. The introduction reviews the essential themes that have informed Johns's career since the epoch-making Flag and Target paintings of the mid-1950s, while an essay surveys Johns's impact on the development of pop art, minimalism and conceptual art in the 1960s, and continuing through his pervasive impact on the imagination of artists today. Roberta Bernstein analyzes the variety of references in Johns's art to the work of his predecessors, from Leonardo and Grunewald to Cezanne.

Genres: Art

Hardcover

First published September 28, 1996

About the author

John Kirk Train Varnedoe was an American art historian, the Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art from 1988 to 2001, Professor of the History of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and Professor of Fine Arts at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.

Reviews

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huge lush MOMA hardback tome. The usual lockdown habit for me of taking of a previously bought art book and actually reading all the accompanying essays. This had a great chronology with lots of photos of Johns at work in the studio over the years which I always find so fascinating. The studio spaces and work in progress.