Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’

Widely known for his iconic images of flags, targets, numbers, maps and light bulbs, Jasper Johns has occupied a central position in American art since his first solo exhibition in 1958. This will be the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s work in the UK in 40 years. One-hundred-and-fifty paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints reveal the continuities and changes in Johns’ artistic practice. During the 1960s Johns worked with an array of household objects and casts of the human figure. The works of the 1970s are dominated by an abstract pattern, referred to as ‘crosshatchings.’ During the following decades Johns introduced a variety of images that engaged with ongoing themes involving memory, sexuality, and mortality. By the early 2000s Johns had embarked on the more conceptual Catenary series which, along with other recent works, show the rich productivity of this late phase of his career. Find out more about the Jasper Johns exhibition from the RA’s website.

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Target (1961), Jasper Johns. © Jasper Johns / VAGA, New York / DACS, London. Photo: © 2017. The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY / Scala, Florence

Between the Clock and the Bed (1981), Jasper Johns. © Jasper Johns / VAGA, New York / DACS, London 2017. Photo: Jamie Stukenberg © The Wildenstein Plattner Institute, 2017