Jasper Johns</a> began the first of a series of paintings, collages, drawings, prints, and sculptures depicting the 48-star American flag. Johns’ image, made in a wide range of materials, sizes, and configurations, has become an icon of American and Modern art. It helped facilitate his breakthrough as a star in the art world after his solo debut at the Castelli Gallery in January 1958. Johns’ flags, targets, maps and other subjects of the late 1950s and early 1960s included images that were complete and readily apprehended, instantly recognizable and perhaps taken for granted in our daily lives. Such images helped define the first wave of Pop art for much of the international art world and remain among the most influential paintings of their era. <br><br>This summer, PAFA will feature one of Johns’ most sensuously painted flag paintings in a single-object exhibition. <i>Flag </i>(1960-66), now in a private collection, has been exhibited only once before. The author, director, producer, screenwriter, and collector Michael Crichton (1942-2008), purchased the painting from his friend, Johns, in 1973. It occupied pride of place in a collection that was extraordinarily well selected and full of major works by the leading artists of the Pop generation. <i>Flag </i>recently sold at auction for a record price and the present owners have generously allowed PAFA to give the painting its national debut. <br><br>When Johns chose the American flag as a subject, he selected an image that could inspire an extraordinary range of emotions, personal associations, and historical memory. He told curator Walter Hopps in 1965, he gravitated towards such images because they’re, “things which are seen and not looked at, not examined, and they both have clearly defined areas which could be measured and transferred to canvas.”<i> Flag </i>subverted modernist critics’ emphasis on flatness and self-referentiality as the highest achievements of modern painting. Johns’ painting <i>depicts</i> a flat object presented as an object complete with painted edges. Its physical edges are the image’s edges. This has led some art historians to muse whether Johns’ flags are paintings or actual flags – can a representation become the thing it represents? <br><br>While many of the issues posed by Johns’ work were unique to his time, the capacity for realist painting to cross over into reality had been tested by American trompe l’oeil painters in the late 19th century such as John Frederick Peto and William Harnett, artists with ties to Philadelphia and PAFA. These artists attempted to make painted still-lifes that so closely resembled the objects they depicted that the resulting image would “fool” viewers into thinking that they were seeing real objects rather than painted illusions. Johns’ innovation was focusing on a subject that could be simultaneously object, symbol, realist representation, and was found, not designed by the artist. In his words, the subject was “preformed, conventional, depersonalized, factual, [including] exterior elements.” In <i>Flag </i>the “flag” is not situated in illusionistic space but is the tangible, self-contained entire hand-made object. <br><br>As Johns told critic David Sylvester in 1965, “I’m interested in things which suggest the world rather than suggest the personality. I’m interested in things which suggest things which are, rather than in judgments. The most conventional thing, the most ordinary thing – it seems to me that those things can be dealt with without having to judge them; they seem to me to exist as clear facts, not involving aesthetic hierarchy.” Johns commented that the discrete and given flag did away with any need for him to design the composition or invent a subject, leaving him free to address other things in painting. Indeed, the painting’s texture-rich surface comes from Johns careful layering of collaged paper and encaustic, an ancient painting technique consisting of pigment and melted wax. From a distance, this surface gives a sense of a relaxed and weathered fabric. At close range the surface is a polyphonic array of arrested drips, short deliberate strokes, mottled patches of color, and semi-transparent brushwork. <i><br><br>Jasper Johns: Flag</i> will be accompanied by a series of public talks and interactive programs, focusing on the numerous ways Johns' painting continues to influence artists, has changed the way we view our flag, and the myriad meanings the image has for viewers. PAFA's presentation, an exhibition of ideas inspired by, concentrated in, and provoked by <em>Flag </em>will be a unique experience for visitors this summer." />
Jasper Johns: Flag
Jun 26, 2010 - Sep 12, 2010
In 1954, after dreaming that he painted a flag of the United States of America, Jasper Johns began the first of a series of paintings, collages, drawings, prints, and sculptures depicting the 48-star American flag. Johns’ image, made in a wide range of materials, sizes, and configurations, has become an icon of American and Modern art. It helped facilitate his breakthrough as a star in the art world after his solo debut at the Castelli Gallery in January 1958. Johns’ flags, targets, maps and other subjects of the late 1950s and early 1960s included images that were complete and readily apprehended, instantly recognizable and perhaps taken for granted in our daily lives. Such images helped define the first wave of Pop art for much of the international art world and remain among the most influential paintings of their era.
This summer, PAFA will feature one of Johns’ most sensuously painted flag paintings in a single-object exhibition. Flag (1960-66), now in a private collection, has been exhibited only once before. The author, director, producer, screenwriter, and collector Michael Crichton (1942-2008), purchased the painting from his friend, Johns, in 1973. It occupied pride of place in a collection that was extraordinarily well selected and full of major works by the leading artists of the Pop generation. Flag recently sold at auction for a record price and the present owners have generously allowed PAFA to give the painting its national debut.
When Johns chose the American flag as a subject, he selected an image that could inspire an extraordinary range of emotions, personal associations, and historical memory. He told curator Walter Hopps in 1965, he gravitated towards such images because they’re, “things which are seen and not looked at, not examined, and they both have clearly defined areas which could be measured and transferred to canvas.” Flag subverted modernist critics’ emphasis on flatness and self-referentiality as the highest achievements of modern painting. Johns’ painting depicts a flat object presented as an object complete with painted edges. Its physical edges are the image’s edges. This has led some art historians to muse whether Johns’ flags are paintings or actual flags – can a representation become the thing it represents?
While many of the issues posed by Johns’ work were unique to his time, the capacity for realist painting to cross over into reality had been tested by American trompe l’oeil painters in the late 19th century such as John Frederick Peto and William Harnett, artists with ties to Philadelphia and PAFA. These artists attempted to make painted still-lifes that so closely resembled the objects they depicted that the resulting image would “fool” viewers into thinking that they were seeing real objects rather than painted illusions. Johns’ innovation was focusing on a subject that could be simultaneously object, symbol, realist representation, and was found, not designed by the artist. In his words, the subject was “preformed, conventional, depersonalized, factual, [including] exterior elements.” In Flag the “flag” is not situated in illusionistic space but is the tangible, self-contained entire hand-made object.
As Johns told critic David Sylvester in 1965, “I’m interested in things which suggest the world rather than suggest the personality. I’m interested in things which suggest things which are, rather than in judgments. The most conventional thing, the most ordinary thing – it seems to me that those things can be dealt with without having to judge them; they seem to me to exist as clear facts, not involving aesthetic hierarchy.” Johns commented that the discrete and given flag did away with any need for him to design the composition or invent a subject, leaving him free to address other things in painting. Indeed, the painting’s texture-rich surface comes from Johns careful layering of collaged paper and encaustic, an ancient painting technique consisting of pigment and melted wax. From a distance, this surface gives a sense of a relaxed and weathered fabric. At close range the surface is a polyphonic array of arrested drips, short deliberate strokes, mottled patches of color, and semi-transparent brushwork.
Jasper Johns: Flag will be accompanied by a series of public talks and interactive programs, focusing on the numerous ways Johns' painting continues to influence artists, has changed the way we view our flag, and the myriad meanings the image has for viewers. PAFA's presentation, an exhibition of ideas inspired by, concentrated in, and provoked by Flag will be a unique experience for visitors this summer.
This summer, PAFA will feature one of Johns’ most sensuously painted flag paintings in a single-object exhibition. Flag (1960-66), now in a private collection, has been exhibited only once before. The author, director, producer, screenwriter, and collector Michael Crichton (1942-2008), purchased the painting from his friend, Johns, in 1973. It occupied pride of place in a collection that was extraordinarily well selected and full of major works by the leading artists of the Pop generation. Flag recently sold at auction for a record price and the present owners have generously allowed PAFA to give the painting its national debut.
When Johns chose the American flag as a subject, he selected an image that could inspire an extraordinary range of emotions, personal associations, and historical memory. He told curator Walter Hopps in 1965, he gravitated towards such images because they’re, “things which are seen and not looked at, not examined, and they both have clearly defined areas which could be measured and transferred to canvas.” Flag subverted modernist critics’ emphasis on flatness and self-referentiality as the highest achievements of modern painting. Johns’ painting depicts a flat object presented as an object complete with painted edges. Its physical edges are the image’s edges. This has led some art historians to muse whether Johns’ flags are paintings or actual flags – can a representation become the thing it represents?
While many of the issues posed by Johns’ work were unique to his time, the capacity for realist painting to cross over into reality had been tested by American trompe l’oeil painters in the late 19th century such as John Frederick Peto and William Harnett, artists with ties to Philadelphia and PAFA. These artists attempted to make painted still-lifes that so closely resembled the objects they depicted that the resulting image would “fool” viewers into thinking that they were seeing real objects rather than painted illusions. Johns’ innovation was focusing on a subject that could be simultaneously object, symbol, realist representation, and was found, not designed by the artist. In his words, the subject was “preformed, conventional, depersonalized, factual, [including] exterior elements.” In Flag the “flag” is not situated in illusionistic space but is the tangible, self-contained entire hand-made object.
As Johns told critic David Sylvester in 1965, “I’m interested in things which suggest the world rather than suggest the personality. I’m interested in things which suggest things which are, rather than in judgments. The most conventional thing, the most ordinary thing – it seems to me that those things can be dealt with without having to judge them; they seem to me to exist as clear facts, not involving aesthetic hierarchy.” Johns commented that the discrete and given flag did away with any need for him to design the composition or invent a subject, leaving him free to address other things in painting. Indeed, the painting’s texture-rich surface comes from Johns careful layering of collaged paper and encaustic, an ancient painting technique consisting of pigment and melted wax. From a distance, this surface gives a sense of a relaxed and weathered fabric. At close range the surface is a polyphonic array of arrested drips, short deliberate strokes, mottled patches of color, and semi-transparent brushwork.
Jasper Johns: Flag will be accompanied by a series of public talks and interactive programs, focusing on the numerous ways Johns' painting continues to influence artists, has changed the way we view our flag, and the myriad meanings the image has for viewers. PAFA's presentation, an exhibition of ideas inspired by, concentrated in, and provoked by Flag will be a unique experience for visitors this summer.
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In 1954, after dreaming that he painted a flag of the United States of America, Jasper Johns began the first of a series of paintings, collages, drawings, prints, and sculptures depicting the 48-star American flag. Johns’ image, made in a wide range of materials, sizes, and configurations, has become an icon of American and Modern art. It helped facilitate his breakthrough as a star in the art world after his solo debut at the Castelli Gallery in January 1958. Johns’ flags, targets, maps and other subjects of the late 1950s and early 1960s included images that were complete and readily apprehended, instantly recognizable and perhaps taken for granted in our daily lives. Such images helped define the first wave of Pop art for much of the international art world and remain among the most influential paintings of their era.
This summer, PAFA will feature one of Johns’ most sensuously painted flag paintings in a single-object exhibition. Flag (1960-66), now in a private collection, has been exhibited only once before. The author, director, producer, screenwriter, and collector Michael Crichton (1942-2008), purchased the painting from his friend, Johns, in 1973. It occupied pride of place in a collection that was extraordinarily well selected and full of major works by the leading artists of the Pop generation. Flag recently sold at auction for a record price and the present owners have generously allowed PAFA to give the painting its national debut.
When Johns chose the American flag as a subject, he selected an image that could inspire an extraordinary range of emotions, personal associations, and historical memory. He told curator Walter Hopps in 1965, he gravitated towards such images because they’re, “things which are seen and not looked at, not examined, and they both have clearly defined areas which could be measured and transferred to canvas.” Flag subverted modernist critics’ emphasis on flatness and self-referentiality as the highest achievements of modern painting. Johns’ painting depicts a flat object presented as an object complete with painted edges. Its physical edges are the image’s edges. This has led some art historians to muse whether Johns’ flags are paintings or actual flags – can a representation become the thing it represents?
While many of the issues posed by Johns’ work were unique to his time, the capacity for realist painting to cross over into reality had been tested by American trompe l’oeil painters in the late 19th century such as John Frederick Peto and William Harnett, artists with ties to Philadelphia and PAFA. These artists attempted to make painted still-lifes that so closely resembled the objects they depicted that the resulting image would “fool” viewers into thinking that they were seeing real objects rather than painted illusions. Johns’ innovation was focusing on a subject that could be simultaneously object, symbol, realist representation, and was found, not designed by the artist. In his words, the subject was “preformed, conventional, depersonalized, factual, [including] exterior elements.” In Flag the “flag” is not situated in illusionistic space but is the tangible, self-contained entire hand-made object.
As Johns told critic David Sylvester in 1965, “I’m interested in things which suggest the world rather than suggest the personality. I’m interested in things which suggest things which are, rather than in judgments. The most conventional thing, the most ordinary thing – it seems to me that those things can be dealt with without having to judge them; they seem to me to exist as clear facts, not involving aesthetic hierarchy.” Johns commented that the discrete and given flag did away with any need for him to design the composition or invent a subject, leaving him free to address other things in painting. Indeed, the painting’s texture-rich surface comes from Johns careful layering of collaged paper and encaustic, an ancient painting technique consisting of pigment and melted wax. From a distance, this surface gives a sense of a relaxed and weathered fabric. At close range the surface is a polyphonic array of arrested drips, short deliberate strokes, mottled patches of color, and semi-transparent brushwork.
Jasper Johns: Flag will be accompanied by a series of public talks and interactive programs, focusing on the numerous ways Johns' painting continues to influence artists, has changed the way we view our flag, and the myriad meanings the image has for viewers. PAFA's presentation, an exhibition of ideas inspired by, concentrated in, and provoked by Flag will be a unique experience for visitors this summer.
This summer, PAFA will feature one of Johns’ most sensuously painted flag paintings in a single-object exhibition. Flag (1960-66), now in a private collection, has been exhibited only once before. The author, director, producer, screenwriter, and collector Michael Crichton (1942-2008), purchased the painting from his friend, Johns, in 1973. It occupied pride of place in a collection that was extraordinarily well selected and full of major works by the leading artists of the Pop generation. Flag recently sold at auction for a record price and the present owners have generously allowed PAFA to give the painting its national debut.
When Johns chose the American flag as a subject, he selected an image that could inspire an extraordinary range of emotions, personal associations, and historical memory. He told curator Walter Hopps in 1965, he gravitated towards such images because they’re, “things which are seen and not looked at, not examined, and they both have clearly defined areas which could be measured and transferred to canvas.” Flag subverted modernist critics’ emphasis on flatness and self-referentiality as the highest achievements of modern painting. Johns’ painting depicts a flat object presented as an object complete with painted edges. Its physical edges are the image’s edges. This has led some art historians to muse whether Johns’ flags are paintings or actual flags – can a representation become the thing it represents?
While many of the issues posed by Johns’ work were unique to his time, the capacity for realist painting to cross over into reality had been tested by American trompe l’oeil painters in the late 19th century such as John Frederick Peto and William Harnett, artists with ties to Philadelphia and PAFA. These artists attempted to make painted still-lifes that so closely resembled the objects they depicted that the resulting image would “fool” viewers into thinking that they were seeing real objects rather than painted illusions. Johns’ innovation was focusing on a subject that could be simultaneously object, symbol, realist representation, and was found, not designed by the artist. In his words, the subject was “preformed, conventional, depersonalized, factual, [including] exterior elements.” In Flag the “flag” is not situated in illusionistic space but is the tangible, self-contained entire hand-made object.
As Johns told critic David Sylvester in 1965, “I’m interested in things which suggest the world rather than suggest the personality. I’m interested in things which suggest things which are, rather than in judgments. The most conventional thing, the most ordinary thing – it seems to me that those things can be dealt with without having to judge them; they seem to me to exist as clear facts, not involving aesthetic hierarchy.” Johns commented that the discrete and given flag did away with any need for him to design the composition or invent a subject, leaving him free to address other things in painting. Indeed, the painting’s texture-rich surface comes from Johns careful layering of collaged paper and encaustic, an ancient painting technique consisting of pigment and melted wax. From a distance, this surface gives a sense of a relaxed and weathered fabric. At close range the surface is a polyphonic array of arrested drips, short deliberate strokes, mottled patches of color, and semi-transparent brushwork.
Jasper Johns: Flag will be accompanied by a series of public talks and interactive programs, focusing on the numerous ways Johns' painting continues to influence artists, has changed the way we view our flag, and the myriad meanings the image has for viewers. PAFA's presentation, an exhibition of ideas inspired by, concentrated in, and provoked by Flag will be a unique experience for visitors this summer.
Artists on show
Contact details
Sunday
11:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday - Saturday
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
118-128 North Broad Street Middle City East - Philadelphia, PA, USA 19102
What's on nearby
Dan Miller</a> & <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Exhibition/Jasper-Johns--Flag/"/Artist/Bruce-Samuelson/238028343C0A5ED5">Bruce Samuelson</a> is a special exhibition that honors the work of esteemed, longstanding PAFA faculty members, Dan Miller and Bruce Samuelson. Not only a recognition of their extensive artistic practices that collectively span painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, the exhibition also honors the incredible impact these instructors have had on the PAFA community—from students, faculty, to alumni. As students of the Academy (Dan graduated in 1959 and Bruce in 1968), their journeys have been interwoven with the fabric of PAFA’s deeply rooted educational history that blends tradition with innovation, skills with concepts, and practice with artistic voice. </p><p>Two in Time shows its viewers that two of a kind is better than one. As Dan and Bruce have left their imprints upon many at PAFA across programs—from their authentic teaching, thoughtful critiques, and unwavering dedication—these gems have contributed to what makes the School of Fine Arts a sanctuary for artists. </p><p>Together their PAFA legacies constitute over a century of teaching and inspiring others. Etched into the hearts and practices of past, current, and future makers, the timeless influence of Dan and Bruce as both faculty and artists is celebrated in this momentous exhibition and beyond. </p><p><br></p>" />
