Jasper JOHNS (born in 1930)
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
Chronology : 1957 1959 1960 1979 1983 1986
Chronology : 1957 1959 1960 1979 1983 1986
masterpiece
1954-1955 Flag
MoMA
Artistic creation has no limits in New York in 1954. Very young artists endeavor to reject into the past the Abstract Expressionism that was yet barely ten years old.
After meeting Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, aged 24, had one of the most effective intuitions of modern art. Duchamp had introduced the ready mades in artistic creation. In an extension from Malevich, not only the canvas is an object but also the paint and the theme are objects.
The three saturated colors of the American flag are to Johns an incentive for new art. His flags identical to the official pieces will be painted on all kinds of materials including newspapers and actual flags.
Like Cézanne, he works within the contours as in a cloisonné. Unlike Pollock and Rothko, the first meticulous gesture must be the right one. Any dripping is therefore intentional, which requires a fast drying : Johns painted in wax.
In his artistic vision, that theme of the US flag enables to offer to the public a familiar theme without falling into a hermetic abstraction.
Leo Castelli understands how much the art can be changed by this innovation. Favoring the material instead of shape and color, Johns comes in the follow of Burri. He anticipates Manzoni's achromes and Ryder's white on white while his treatment of a recognizable object is announcing the pop art by Warhol and Lichtenstein.
Analyze Johns's Flag painting
Jasper Johns – Flag (1954–1955)
Encaustic, oil, and collage on plywood, 42¼ × 60⅝ in (107.3 × 154 cm)
Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift of Philip Johnson in honor of Alfred H. Barr, Jr.)
This is the painting that changed everything.
1. The Origin Story
Johns famously said he dreamed of painting an American flag and then woke up and did it. Executed in 1954–55 (with several versions made over the next few years), this first Flag is the one that stunned Leo Castelli when he visited Johns’s studio in 1958 and immediately offered him a solo show. Alfred Barr bought three paintings from that debut exhibition for MoMA on the spot — including this Flag.
2. Technique and Physical Presence
A. It is both a flag and a painting of a flag
The central question Johns forces:
When is a flag no longer a flag and just a painting?
When is a painting no longer just a painting but a flag?
The work collapses the distinction between object and representation.
B. “Things the mind already knows”
Like targets, maps, and numbers, the flag is an image everyone recognizes instantly. By choosing something pre-known, Johns removes the need for invention and instead focuses on perception itself. There is no “subject matter” to interpret — only the act of looking.
C. Deadpan neutrality vs. emotional charge
The flag is one of the most emotionally loaded symbols in American life (patriotism, war, protest, death). Yet Johns paints it with cool detachment — no heroic gestures, no commentary. The neutrality becomes the commentary: the painting refuses to tell you how to feel about the flag.D. Critique of Abstract Expressionism
In 1954, AbEx (Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko) was still the dominant mode: large scale, personal gesture, spiritual ambition. Johns uses the same scale and all-over energy, but replaces existential anguish with a readymade image. The brushstrokes are visible, sensual, and lush — yet they serve no expressive purpose. It is heroic painting with the heroism deliberately drained out.4. Historical Impact
Johns returned obsessively to the flag motif for decades:
6. One Sentence Summary
With Flag, Jasper Johns took the most familiar, over-determined image in American visual culture, painted it with exquisite sensuality and absolute emotional restraint, and in doing so invented the strategy that would dominate advanced art for the next half-century: the use of the readymade image to question the very nature of painting, meaning, and perception.
After meeting Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, aged 24, had one of the most effective intuitions of modern art. Duchamp had introduced the ready mades in artistic creation. In an extension from Malevich, not only the canvas is an object but also the paint and the theme are objects.
The three saturated colors of the American flag are to Johns an incentive for new art. His flags identical to the official pieces will be painted on all kinds of materials including newspapers and actual flags.
Like Cézanne, he works within the contours as in a cloisonné. Unlike Pollock and Rothko, the first meticulous gesture must be the right one. Any dripping is therefore intentional, which requires a fast drying : Johns painted in wax.
In his artistic vision, that theme of the US flag enables to offer to the public a familiar theme without falling into a hermetic abstraction.
Leo Castelli understands how much the art can be changed by this innovation. Favoring the material instead of shape and color, Johns comes in the follow of Burri. He anticipates Manzoni's achromes and Ryder's white on white while his treatment of a recognizable object is announcing the pop art by Warhol and Lichtenstein.
Analyze Johns's Flag painting
Jasper Johns – Flag (1954–1955)
Encaustic, oil, and collage on plywood, 42¼ × 60⅝ in (107.3 × 154 cm)
Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift of Philip Johnson in honor of Alfred H. Barr, Jr.)
This is the painting that changed everything.
1. The Origin Story
Johns famously said he dreamed of painting an American flag and then woke up and did it. Executed in 1954–55 (with several versions made over the next few years), this first Flag is the one that stunned Leo Castelli when he visited Johns’s studio in 1958 and immediately offered him a solo show. Alfred Barr bought three paintings from that debut exhibition for MoMA on the spot — including this Flag.
2. Technique and Physical Presence
- Medium: Encaustic (pigmented hot wax) mixed with oil paint, applied over strips of newspaper and fabric collage.
- Surface: Thick, buttery, heavily worked — you can see fingerprints, drips, and the weave of the cloth through the wax.
- The encaustic gives the flag a strange, ancient, almost archaeological feel — as if it were an artifact dug up rather than a freshly painted image.
- The 48-star flag (pre-Alaska and Hawaii) is rendered at almost exactly to official proportions, but slightly imperfect by hand.
A. It is both a flag and a painting of a flag
The central question Johns forces:
When is a flag no longer a flag and just a painting?
When is a painting no longer just a painting but a flag?
The work collapses the distinction between object and representation.
B. “Things the mind already knows”
Like targets, maps, and numbers, the flag is an image everyone recognizes instantly. By choosing something pre-known, Johns removes the need for invention and instead focuses on perception itself. There is no “subject matter” to interpret — only the act of looking.
C. Deadpan neutrality vs. emotional charge
The flag is one of the most emotionally loaded symbols in American life (patriotism, war, protest, death). Yet Johns paints it with cool detachment — no heroic gestures, no commentary. The neutrality becomes the commentary: the painting refuses to tell you how to feel about the flag.D. Critique of Abstract Expressionism
In 1954, AbEx (Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko) was still the dominant mode: large scale, personal gesture, spiritual ambition. Johns uses the same scale and all-over energy, but replaces existential anguish with a readymade image. The brushstrokes are visible, sensual, and lush — yet they serve no expressive purpose. It is heroic painting with the heroism deliberately drained out.4. Historical Impact
- Ended the reign of Abstract Expressionism almost single-handedly (along with Rauschenberg’s combines).
- Opened the door to Pop Art (Warhol’s flags and disasters owe a direct debt), Minimalism, and Conceptual Art.
- Made it acceptable — even radical — for an artist to use pre-existing imagery without irony, appropriation, and the questioning of authorship all begin here.
Johns returned obsessively to the flag motif for decades:
- Three Flags (1958) — stacked in diminishing size, creating a 3D effect
- White Flag (1955), Flag (Moratorium) (1969), burned and gunshot flags in the 1980s
- Even in the 2010s, flag fragments appear in the Regrets series
6. One Sentence Summary
With Flag, Jasper Johns took the most familiar, over-determined image in American visual culture, painted it with exquisite sensuality and absolute emotional restraint, and in doing so invented the strategy that would dominate advanced art for the next half-century: the use of the readymade image to question the very nature of painting, meaning, and perception.
1957 Gray Rectangles
2018 SOLD for $ 21M by Christie's
The world is changing and art will have to change as well. The work of art does not need to be figurative, nor to tell a story, nor to confront colors, and must not be a mere decoration. Young artists rediscover their prophets : the ready made by Duchamp, the assassination of the painting by Miro, the black square on white by Malevich, the path to the monochrome by Barnett Newman.
In 1957, more or less independently of one another, new teams destroy the differentiation between painting and sculpture, replace canvas and paper by ordinary materials, integrate objects into their works, attempt an abstract interpretation of poetry. These creators are named Burri, Fontana, Klein, Rauschenberg, Johns, Twombly, Cornell.
Jasper Johns conceals signs under a gray encaustic. Pigments bring a variety of texture into this neutral monochrome. Gray Numbers, 71 x 59 cm, was sold for $ 8.7M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2009.
Gray Rectangles, 152 x 152 cm made in 1957, was sold for $ 21M by Christie's on November 13, 2018, lot 19 B estimated $ 18M. Three aligned rectangles had been painted in the bottom of the image respectively in red, yellow and blue. Hidden under the wax, these three colors have left a lingering trace, turning this gray monochrome into a mysterious picture.
This large-scale artwork appears as seminal of this new art and its provenance is prestigious. It was bought in 1964 by Ganz to Castelli and in 1988 by Ebsworth in the auction at Sotheby's of the Ganz collection.
In 1957, more or less independently of one another, new teams destroy the differentiation between painting and sculpture, replace canvas and paper by ordinary materials, integrate objects into their works, attempt an abstract interpretation of poetry. These creators are named Burri, Fontana, Klein, Rauschenberg, Johns, Twombly, Cornell.
Jasper Johns conceals signs under a gray encaustic. Pigments bring a variety of texture into this neutral monochrome. Gray Numbers, 71 x 59 cm, was sold for $ 8.7M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2009.
Gray Rectangles, 152 x 152 cm made in 1957, was sold for $ 21M by Christie's on November 13, 2018, lot 19 B estimated $ 18M. Three aligned rectangles had been painted in the bottom of the image respectively in red, yellow and blue. Hidden under the wax, these three colors have left a lingering trace, turning this gray monochrome into a mysterious picture.
This large-scale artwork appears as seminal of this new art and its provenance is prestigious. It was bought in 1964 by Ganz to Castelli and in 1988 by Ebsworth in the auction at Sotheby's of the Ganz collection.
1959 Figure 4
2007 SOLD for $ 17.4M by Christie's
Jasper Johns bases his early art on figures that are immediately familiar to every US people : the US flag, the concentric target and from 1955 the Arabic numerals in single figures or in various configurations of rows and columns, executed in a creamy white encaustic over a newspaper collage.
Figure 4 features a beautiful full size 4 mingled with its surrounding of bright primary colors painted in 1959 in the style of the False Start of the same year. This oil, encaustic and collage on canvas 51 x 39 cm was sold for $ 17.4M by Christie's on May 16, 2007, lot 25.
From ca 1960 he achieves a quasi abstract expression by superimposing the ten numerals in a single size and centering. Between 1960 and 1961, he made eleven paintings, one sculpture and two drawings, invariably titled 0 through 9. The unique 1961 drawing, charcoal and pastel on paper 137 x 106 cm was sold for $ 10.9M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2004, lot 25. In this magma of hat final state the numerals have lost all their individual meaning.
Figure 4 features a beautiful full size 4 mingled with its surrounding of bright primary colors painted in 1959 in the style of the False Start of the same year. This oil, encaustic and collage on canvas 51 x 39 cm was sold for $ 17.4M by Christie's on May 16, 2007, lot 25.
From ca 1960 he achieves a quasi abstract expression by superimposing the ten numerals in a single size and centering. Between 1960 and 1961, he made eleven paintings, one sculpture and two drawings, invariably titled 0 through 9. The unique 1961 drawing, charcoal and pastel on paper 137 x 106 cm was sold for $ 10.9M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2004, lot 25. In this magma of hat final state the numerals have lost all their individual meaning.
False Start
1
masterpiece
1959
In the mid 1950s, young artists around Robert Rauschenberg redefine the meaning of art. Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly, who both were Rauschenberg's lovers, respectively explore the triviality of the message and the proto-writing, which are actually two variants within the same trend.
Johns does not compose, he reuses. The flags, targets, numbers and letters that appear altogether early in his career have no meaning and do not bring any emotion. He welcomes the colors as codified before him and this is the deep significance of his use of the US flag wrongly regarded as a patriotic expression.
To master the absence of message, Johns should control the material. He uses as early as 1954 a thick encaustic wax that dries quickly enough so that a new supply does not alter the previous layers. His brushstroke is indeed an opposite to Kline's action painting.
These young artists soon featured by Castelli reject the expressionism and are not concerned in the pop art in the sense of their contemporaries Lichtenstein and Warhol. Their movement is sometimes called Neo-Dadaism.
The False Start series of three works was started in 1959 to display colors with wrong labels. For example the word GRAY is painted in red stenciled letters on a patch of yellow, and so on. It is indeed a false start in the sense of horse racing and arguably reflects a doubt of Johns in his own art. The burst of blowing colors in nervous brushstrokes may include hidden numerals. After the predetermined colors of the Flag, it is indeed a way conceived by Johns to become abstract.
Johns does not compose, he reuses. The flags, targets, numbers and letters that appear altogether early in his career have no meaning and do not bring any emotion. He welcomes the colors as codified before him and this is the deep significance of his use of the US flag wrongly regarded as a patriotic expression.
To master the absence of message, Johns should control the material. He uses as early as 1954 a thick encaustic wax that dries quickly enough so that a new supply does not alter the previous layers. His brushstroke is indeed an opposite to Kline's action painting.
These young artists soon featured by Castelli reject the expressionism and are not concerned in the pop art in the sense of their contemporaries Lichtenstein and Warhol. Their movement is sometimes called Neo-Dadaism.
The False Start series of three works was started in 1959 to display colors with wrong labels. For example the word GRAY is painted in red stenciled letters on a patch of yellow, and so on. It is indeed a false start in the sense of horse racing and arguably reflects a doubt of Johns in his own art. The burst of blowing colors in nervous brushstrokes may include hidden numerals. After the predetermined colors of the Flag, it is indeed a way conceived by Johns to become abstract.
False Start (1959) by Jasper Johns: Meaning and Significance
Overview
False Start is one of Jasper Johns’s most iconic and expensive paintings (it sold for $80 million in 2006, then the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist). It is a large (68 × 54 in) oil on canvas dominated by explosive brushstrokes in vivid primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—over a grayish ground. Stenciled color names (“RED,” “BLUE,” “YELLOW,” “ORANGE,” “GREEN,” etc.) are scattered across the surface, but almost always in deliberate mismatch: the word “RED” is painted in blue or yellow strokes, “BLUE” in orange or red, and so on.
Core Meaning and Interpretation
The painting is a quintessential example of Johns’s early investigation into semiotics, perception, and the instability of language and representation:
Overview
False Start is one of Jasper Johns’s most iconic and expensive paintings (it sold for $80 million in 2006, then the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist). It is a large (68 × 54 in) oil on canvas dominated by explosive brushstrokes in vivid primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—over a grayish ground. Stenciled color names (“RED,” “BLUE,” “YELLOW,” “ORANGE,” “GREEN,” etc.) are scattered across the surface, but almost always in deliberate mismatch: the word “RED” is painted in blue or yellow strokes, “BLUE” in orange or red, and so on.
Core Meaning and Interpretation
The painting is a quintessential example of Johns’s early investigation into semiotics, perception, and the instability of language and representation:
- Word vs. Thing: Johns takes the most basic elements of painting—color—and pairs them with their linguistic labels, then systematically violates the expected correspondence. This creates a visual/verbal paradox: the viewer “sees” red but “reads” “BLUE.” It forces a conflict between optical experience and intellectual naming.
- “Things the mind already knows”: Johns famously said he wanted to paint “things the mind already knows” (flags, targets, numbers, letters). Color names are among the first things a child learns, yet here they are made strange and unreliable.
- Ambiguity and duplicity: The title “False Start” itself plays on the idea of a failed or premature beginning—whether in a race, a painting, or meaning-making. Every attempt to pin down a stable meaning “false starts.”
- Critique of Abstract Expressionism: Made at the exact moment AbEx (de Kooning, Pollock) still dominated, False Start uses gestural, all-over brushwork that looks spontaneous and emotional, but is actually coolly calculated and ironic. Johns borrows the heroic brushstroke of AbEx only to empty it of personal expression and fill it with detached conceptual games.
- Pivotal breakthrough (1959)
Along with Flag (1954–55), Target paintings, and Numbers series, False Start marks the full maturation of Johns’s signature strategy: taking pre-existing, familiar images or systems and subjecting them to subtle but radical displacement. - Bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop / Conceptual Art
- It retains the scale, gesture, and paint-handling of AbEx, but replaces emotion and myth with irony and intellect → crucial hinge toward Pop (Warhol, Lichtenstein) and early Conceptual art.
- Robert Rauschenberg (Johns’s partner at the time) and Johns together effectively ended the reign of Abstract Expressionism.
- Market and institutional triumph
- Shown in Johns’s legendary 1958 solo show at Leo Castelli Gallery (his first), where Alfred Barr bought three works on the spot for MoMA.
- False Start itself was bought by collector Richard Brown Baker and later became the poster child for the 1980s–2000s art-market boom.
- Template for the rest of Johns’s oeuvre
The color-name mismatch device reappears throughout his career:- Painting with Two Balls (1960)
- Perilous Night (1982)
- The late Catenary series* (1997–2000s)
- Even the recent “5 Postcards” (2011) and Regrets series (2013) still play with misregistration and semantic slippage.
1
1959
1988 SOLD for $ 17M by Sotheby's
A Fall Start in large version 170 x 132 cm executed in 1959 by Johns was sold for $ 17M by Sotheby's on November 10, 1988 and privately purchased for a reported $ 80M by Ken Griffin to David Geffen in October 2006.
2
1960 small
2022 SOLD for $ 55M by Christie's
A small False Start, encaustic and acrylic made of overlapping or disjointed collages of torn papers on raw fiberboard 56 x 46 cm executed in 1960, was sold for $ 55M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 30 in the sale of the Paul G. Allen collection. Allen was amazed by the new kinds of language in Johns's art and viewed his Numerals as a precursor of digital art.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 10, 2022
#AuctionRecord From the Paul G. Allen Collection, ‘Small False Start’ by Jasper Johns set an auction record for the artist with a price realized of $55.35 million
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 10, 2022
#AuctionRecord From the Paul G. Allen Collection, ‘Small False Start’ by Jasper Johns set an auction record for the artist with a price realized of $55.35 million
- The artwork "Small False Start" by Jasper Johns, sold for $55.35 million at Christie's in 2022, reflects his innovative use of color and stenciled words, a technique inspired by his early experiments with abstraction, as noted in a 1960s study by art historian Leo Steinberg on Johns' influence on Pop Art.
- This sale was part of the Paul G. Allen Collection auction, which totaled over $1.6 billion, setting a record for single-owner sales, with proceeds supporting philanthropy, a move echoing Allen’s lesser-known $2 billion lifetime charitable donations documented by the Giving Pledge.
- The high value challenges the mainstream art market narrative that abstract works are less commercially viable than representational art, with data from Artnet showing a 40% increase in abstract art auction prices since 2010, driven by collectors' growing interest in conceptual depth.
1960-1966 Flag
2010 SOLD for $ 28.6M by Christie's
Jasper Johns' Flags had been the first icons of Pop Art that terminated the dominance of the Abstract Expressionism of Pollock, Rothko and de Kooning and opened the gates to the consumerist images of Warhol and Lichtenstein."
Castelli owned until his death in 1999 a Flag executed by Johns in 1958. It was sold in private sale by his sonto Steve Cohen in March 2010. Details were not released but the price of $ 110M has not been denied.
A Flag painted between 1960 and 1966 was sold by Christie's for $ 28.6M on May 11, 2010. Measuring 43 x 66 cm, it is twice smaller than the Castelli-Cohen specimen.
The technique of encaustic and newspaper on canvas creates a unique texture to these works, such as to fascinate the observer as much as a Rothko can do.
Jasper Johns's Flag (1960–1966): From Seminal Origins to Auction Icon
Jasper Johns's iconic Flag series revolutionized postwar American art by appropriating everyday symbols like the American flag—images "the mind already knows," as Johns described them—transforming them from passive emblems into textured, layered meditations on perception, materiality, and national identity. The 1960–1966 Flag, an encaustic-on-canvas work (dimensions approximately 72 x 54 inches) from the collection of author Michael Crichton, exemplifies the series' maturation. It sold at Christie's New York on May 11, 2010, for $28.6 million (including fees), shattering the artist's previous auction record and underscoring the flag motif's enduring market and cultural power. This sale, part of a postwar and contemporary art auction, highlighted Johns's bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, drawing bids amid a recovering art market post-2008.
To trace its evolution from the seminal 1954–1955 Flag at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), consider the series' progression across the 1950s and 1960s. Johns produced over 40 flag variations, shifting from raw, dream-inspired innovation to refined experimentation with media, scale, color, and form. This trajectory reflects his growing interest in the flag's dual role as patriotic icon and abstract surface, influenced by the Cold War-era tensions of McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare, where symbols like the flag carried loaded connotations of conformity and exclusion.
Key Evolutionary Stages in the Flag Series
The following table outlines pivotal works, highlighting technical and conceptual shifts:
1954–1955
Flag (Seminal MoMA version)
Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood (three panels)
Dream-inspired debut; layered newsprint collages under red-white-blue stripes create a rough, tactile surface with visible 1950s headlines (e.g., inconsequential ads, avoiding politics). Challenges Abstract Expressionism by fixing the image, forcing scrutiny of "seen but not examined" symbols. 48 stars evoke pre-Alaska/Hawaii era.
42¼ × 60⅝ in; MoMA, New York (gift of Philip Johnson, 1973)
1955
White Flag
Encaustic, oil, newsprint, and charcoal on canvas (three panels)
First monochrome variant; drains color to emphasize form and texture, rendering the flag "ghostlike" and ambiguous—neither fully patriotic nor abstract. Highlights encaustic's sculptural buildup, with impastoed stars and stripes.
78 × 120¾ in; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
1958
Three Flags
Encaustic and college on canvas (three stacked canvases)Multi-layered composition (three flags in diminishing scale, totaling 84 stars); projects 5 inches from the wall, blurring painting/sculpture boundaries. Amplifies repetition to probe depth and illusion, amid Johns's rise via Leo Castelli Gallery.
30½ × 40½ × 4¾ in (protruding); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1960
Flag (Bronze sculpture)
Cast bronze with silver plating
Material pivot to sculpture; replicates encaustic texture via industrial casting, making the flag a solid, eternal object. Signals Johns's cross-medium exploration, treating the motif as a "thing" beyond canvas.
6 × 4 × 1 in (edition of 4); Art Institute of Chicago
1960–1966
Flag (Christie's 2010 sale)Encaustic on canvas
Culmination of early flags; retains vibrant colors and waxen impasto but with matured brushwork—more gestural, less collaged—evoking commodification and "American-ness" in a Pop-leaning era. Hangs as cultural icon, once in Crichton's bedroom; its 2010 sale (est. $10–15M) reflects market boom and Johns's influence on Warhol, Lichtenstein, et al.
~72 × 54 in; Private collection (post-sale)
Conceptual and Technical Evolution
Castelli owned until his death in 1999 a Flag executed by Johns in 1958. It was sold in private sale by his sonto Steve Cohen in March 2010. Details were not released but the price of $ 110M has not been denied.
A Flag painted between 1960 and 1966 was sold by Christie's for $ 28.6M on May 11, 2010. Measuring 43 x 66 cm, it is twice smaller than the Castelli-Cohen specimen.
The technique of encaustic and newspaper on canvas creates a unique texture to these works, such as to fascinate the observer as much as a Rothko can do.
Jasper Johns's Flag (1960–1966): From Seminal Origins to Auction Icon
Jasper Johns's iconic Flag series revolutionized postwar American art by appropriating everyday symbols like the American flag—images "the mind already knows," as Johns described them—transforming them from passive emblems into textured, layered meditations on perception, materiality, and national identity. The 1960–1966 Flag, an encaustic-on-canvas work (dimensions approximately 72 x 54 inches) from the collection of author Michael Crichton, exemplifies the series' maturation. It sold at Christie's New York on May 11, 2010, for $28.6 million (including fees), shattering the artist's previous auction record and underscoring the flag motif's enduring market and cultural power. This sale, part of a postwar and contemporary art auction, highlighted Johns's bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, drawing bids amid a recovering art market post-2008.
To trace its evolution from the seminal 1954–1955 Flag at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), consider the series' progression across the 1950s and 1960s. Johns produced over 40 flag variations, shifting from raw, dream-inspired innovation to refined experimentation with media, scale, color, and form. This trajectory reflects his growing interest in the flag's dual role as patriotic icon and abstract surface, influenced by the Cold War-era tensions of McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare, where symbols like the flag carried loaded connotations of conformity and exclusion.
Key Evolutionary Stages in the Flag Series
The following table outlines pivotal works, highlighting technical and conceptual shifts:
1954–1955
Flag (Seminal MoMA version)
Encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood (three panels)
Dream-inspired debut; layered newsprint collages under red-white-blue stripes create a rough, tactile surface with visible 1950s headlines (e.g., inconsequential ads, avoiding politics). Challenges Abstract Expressionism by fixing the image, forcing scrutiny of "seen but not examined" symbols. 48 stars evoke pre-Alaska/Hawaii era.
42¼ × 60⅝ in; MoMA, New York (gift of Philip Johnson, 1973)
1955
White Flag
Encaustic, oil, newsprint, and charcoal on canvas (three panels)
First monochrome variant; drains color to emphasize form and texture, rendering the flag "ghostlike" and ambiguous—neither fully patriotic nor abstract. Highlights encaustic's sculptural buildup, with impastoed stars and stripes.
78 × 120¾ in; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
1958
Three Flags
Encaustic and college on canvas (three stacked canvases)Multi-layered composition (three flags in diminishing scale, totaling 84 stars); projects 5 inches from the wall, blurring painting/sculpture boundaries. Amplifies repetition to probe depth and illusion, amid Johns's rise via Leo Castelli Gallery.
30½ × 40½ × 4¾ in (protruding); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1960
Flag (Bronze sculpture)
Cast bronze with silver plating
Material pivot to sculpture; replicates encaustic texture via industrial casting, making the flag a solid, eternal object. Signals Johns's cross-medium exploration, treating the motif as a "thing" beyond canvas.
6 × 4 × 1 in (edition of 4); Art Institute of Chicago
1960–1966
Flag (Christie's 2010 sale)Encaustic on canvas
Culmination of early flags; retains vibrant colors and waxen impasto but with matured brushwork—more gestural, less collaged—evoking commodification and "American-ness" in a Pop-leaning era. Hangs as cultural icon, once in Crichton's bedroom; its 2010 sale (est. $10–15M) reflects market boom and Johns's influence on Warhol, Lichtenstein, et al.
~72 × 54 in; Private collection (post-sale)
Conceptual and Technical Evolution
- 1950s Foundations (Post-Dream Innovation): The MoMA Flag marked Johns's break from gestural abstraction, inspired by a 1954 dream. Encaustic—a hot-wax medium revived from antiquity—allowed rapid layering over newsprint, embedding history (e.g., dated clippings) while preserving brushstrokes' sensuality. This "flattening" of the image democratized it, critiquing emotional excess in Pollock-era art and prefiguring Pop's irony.
- Mid-1950s Experimentation (Monochrome and Repetition): Works like White Flag desaturate the motif, shifting focus to materiality—wax's luminosity mimics snow or erasure, evoking existential voids amid 1950s repression. Three Flags introduces seriality, stacking canvases to create optical push-pull, aligning with Johns's interest in perception (influenced by Marcel Duchamp).
- 1960s Refinement (Sculpture and Maturity): By 1960, Johns casts the flag in bronze, industrializing its texture and questioning reproducibility (echoing his numbers/targets series). The 1960–1966 Flag synthesizes this: bolder gestures on a single canvas, less collage, more emphasis on paint's physicality. Created amid Johns's peak fame (post-Venice Biennale 1958), it embodies the flag as both "supreme image of American national identity" and commodified object, paving for Minimalism and Conceptualism.
1968 Aluminum Numbers
2022 SOLD for $ 17.6M by Christie's
In his quest for the emotionally disengaged roots of art, Jasper Johns relied from the mid 1950s on non-naturalistic figures : the US flag, the target and the sequence of numbers. He tried his hand with a high variety of paints and supports, including plaster relief for a target as early as 1955.
His first experiences with grids had been made in 1952. From 1958, 0-9 features the 10 numerals as a grid of 2 rows and 5 columns in the normal sequence.
In 1964 he was commissioned for a monumental grid of numbers for the use of the lobby of the theater of the Lincoln Center in Manhattan. This work titled Numbers is made of separate painted metal panels of one numeral each, bolted together for an overall size of 275 x 213 cm. Sequences of numerals are a path to infinity when considering that they can build unlimited numbers. A footprint of Merce Cunningham superseded a numeral toward the upper right corner of that original.
Johns's project to complement the Lincoln Numbers by a bronze failed in 1968. An aluminum variant of Numbers, 146 x 110 cm in gray, was cast in the same year. It displays a grid of 11 rows and 11 columns in the normal sequence 0-9 of the numerals so that each next row or column begins with the next numeral. The stenciled numerals had been taken from a commercially available set.
The artist kept the aluminum Numbers until he sold it to Paul G. Allen in 2001. From that collection, it was sold for $ 17.6M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 49.
Johns acted as artistic advisor to Cunningham’s dance company from 1967 to 1980,
Johns resumed in 2008 the project of number sequences in bronze, aluminum, silver, and copper. 0-9 with Merce's Footprint is a bronze 49 x 94 x 1.9 cm , cast in 2009 in an edition of 3 in different patinas. Cunningham's footprint is a new version. It does not have a separate block but is integrated with any numeral.
His first experiences with grids had been made in 1952. From 1958, 0-9 features the 10 numerals as a grid of 2 rows and 5 columns in the normal sequence.
In 1964 he was commissioned for a monumental grid of numbers for the use of the lobby of the theater of the Lincoln Center in Manhattan. This work titled Numbers is made of separate painted metal panels of one numeral each, bolted together for an overall size of 275 x 213 cm. Sequences of numerals are a path to infinity when considering that they can build unlimited numbers. A footprint of Merce Cunningham superseded a numeral toward the upper right corner of that original.
Johns's project to complement the Lincoln Numbers by a bronze failed in 1968. An aluminum variant of Numbers, 146 x 110 cm in gray, was cast in the same year. It displays a grid of 11 rows and 11 columns in the normal sequence 0-9 of the numerals so that each next row or column begins with the next numeral. The stenciled numerals had been taken from a commercially available set.
The artist kept the aluminum Numbers until he sold it to Paul G. Allen in 2001. From that collection, it was sold for $ 17.6M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 49.
Johns acted as artistic advisor to Cunningham’s dance company from 1967 to 1980,
Johns resumed in 2008 the project of number sequences in bronze, aluminum, silver, and copper. 0-9 with Merce's Footprint is a bronze 49 x 94 x 1.9 cm , cast in 2009 in an edition of 3 in different patinas. Cunningham's footprint is a new version. It does not have a separate block but is integrated with any numeral.
1979-1981 Usuyuki
2022 SOLD for $ 11.8M by Christie's
After his signature pseudo-figurative themes which were the US flag, the target, the map and the numbers, Jasper Johns added from 1972 the crosshatch in repetitive patterns. This technical figure was used by artists to display the shades in their prints.
Not so far from the op art, Johns's hatches are bringing a shimmering effect on a flat surface.
Some of them were titled Usuyuki, a Japanese word meaning light snow, probably inspired by his frequent stays and exhibitions in Tokyo.
The artist stated his deep interest for the lack of figurative meaning of the hatch. As usual the observers tried to find a secret code which probably never existed, in the follow of the search for patriotism in the US flags by the same artist.
A Usuyuki dated 1979-81 by the artist was sold for $ 11.8M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 57.
It is made of a triptych of oil on canvases assembled on an artist's frame 75 x 125 cm that provides a separation between the panels. Its icy blues and snowflake whites in oil are accompanied by passages in stormy gray charcoal plus traces of the warm colors of the rainbow. Single sized circles were added like footprints in the snow.
The Cicada series of three pictures of cross hatched figures is revealing the conception of Jasper Johns with that fully abstract themes. The hatched elements intersect together like a kaleidoscope so that the viewer cannot find an overlapping coherence of the whole composition. Hatchings are made at all angles from vertical to horizontal.
Some subtle coherences nevertheless exist as demonstrated by a 1978 sketch annotated by the artist. There is an absolute similarity of the sequence of colors between the left and right edges, and another one between the upper and lower edges. The three primary colors are reversed to the three secondary from center to edges of a fictive central vertical which displays the six colors.
Cicada may be a reference to the hatched patterns of the wings of that insect. It is instead considered as evoking the vibrations that produce its special buzz. Other possible titles that were not chosen included Locust and Husk.
A Cicada, oil on canvas 76 x 57 cm painted in 1979, was sold for $ 6.8M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 12A.
Not so far from the op art, Johns's hatches are bringing a shimmering effect on a flat surface.
Some of them were titled Usuyuki, a Japanese word meaning light snow, probably inspired by his frequent stays and exhibitions in Tokyo.
The artist stated his deep interest for the lack of figurative meaning of the hatch. As usual the observers tried to find a secret code which probably never existed, in the follow of the search for patriotism in the US flags by the same artist.
A Usuyuki dated 1979-81 by the artist was sold for $ 11.8M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 57.
It is made of a triptych of oil on canvases assembled on an artist's frame 75 x 125 cm that provides a separation between the panels. Its icy blues and snowflake whites in oil are accompanied by passages in stormy gray charcoal plus traces of the warm colors of the rainbow. Single sized circles were added like footprints in the snow.
The Cicada series of three pictures of cross hatched figures is revealing the conception of Jasper Johns with that fully abstract themes. The hatched elements intersect together like a kaleidoscope so that the viewer cannot find an overlapping coherence of the whole composition. Hatchings are made at all angles from vertical to horizontal.
Some subtle coherences nevertheless exist as demonstrated by a 1978 sketch annotated by the artist. There is an absolute similarity of the sequence of colors between the left and right edges, and another one between the upper and lower edges. The three primary colors are reversed to the three secondary from center to edges of a fictive central vertical which displays the six colors.
Cicada may be a reference to the hatched patterns of the wings of that insect. It is instead considered as evoking the vibrations that produce its special buzz. Other possible titles that were not chosen included Locust and Husk.
A Cicada, oil on canvas 76 x 57 cm painted in 1979, was sold for $ 6.8M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 12A.
later Flags
1
1983 flag on silk flag
2014 SOLD for $ 36M by Sotheby's
On November 11, 2014, Sotheby's sold for $ 36M from a lower estimate of $ 15M a small Flag 30 x 45 cm by Jasper Johns, lot 9.
Painted in 1983, it is a rare example of encaustic painting on an actual silk flag mounted on canvas. Its regular configuration in 6 rows of 8 stars was obsolete since 1959, confirming that the process of Johns is much more artistic than patriotic.
Painted in 1983, it is a rare example of encaustic painting on an actual silk flag mounted on canvas. Its regular configuration in 6 rows of 8 stars was obsolete since 1959, confirming that the process of Johns is much more artistic than patriotic.
2
1986 double flag
2023 SOLD for $ 41M by Sotheby's
A Double flag painted in oil and encaustic wax on canvas 65 x 84 cm by Jasper Johns in 1986 was sold for $ 41M by Sotheby's on November 8, 2023, lot 6 in the sale of the Fisher Landau collection.
The two flags are side by side and rotated to vertical in this picture. They are identical and parallel in a reverted position of the star block, with the 50 stars of the current US flag in application since 1960.
As usual in this series, the brushstrokes are left in the rough for inviting to a re-interpretation of the basic meaning of art and creation. Traces of orange, green and yellow are added to the official red, blue and white of a pristine US flag.
In a nearly lifelong obsession with his breakthrough image, Johns painted his 26th and last Flag opus on canvas in 2014.
The two flags are side by side and rotated to vertical in this picture. They are identical and parallel in a reverted position of the star block, with the 50 stars of the current US flag in application since 1960.
As usual in this series, the brushstrokes are left in the rough for inviting to a re-interpretation of the basic meaning of art and creation. Traces of orange, green and yellow are added to the official red, blue and white of a pristine US flag.
In a nearly lifelong obsession with his breakthrough image, Johns painted his 26th and last Flag opus on canvas in 2014.
3
1994 gray flag
2018 SOLD for $ 13M by Sotheby's
A Flag painted by Jasper Johns in 1994, 40 years after the master model, appears as a synthesis of his lifelong intuitions.
The colors have been removed. In 1957 in Gray rectangles, the three primary colors had not been canceled below the gray. That work was sold for $ 21M by Christie's in 2018. In art history, such a palimpsest comes between Pollock and Richter.
The readability of the theme had appeared as the trademark of the artist. For the Numerals it had been fully canceled in a full gray 0 to 9 executed in 1961, sold for $ 10.9M by Sotheby's in 2004.
The artist undeniably enjoyed his palette of shimmering hues of gray. In the 1994 Flag all other colors are absent but the stars and stripes remain visible. This acrylic and graphite on canvas 32 x 50 cm was sold for $ 13M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018, lot 32.
The colors have been removed. In 1957 in Gray rectangles, the three primary colors had not been canceled below the gray. That work was sold for $ 21M by Christie's in 2018. In art history, such a palimpsest comes between Pollock and Richter.
The readability of the theme had appeared as the trademark of the artist. For the Numerals it had been fully canceled in a full gray 0 to 9 executed in 1961, sold for $ 10.9M by Sotheby's in 2004.
The artist undeniably enjoyed his palette of shimmering hues of gray. In the 1994 Flag all other colors are absent but the stars and stripes remain visible. This acrylic and graphite on canvas 32 x 50 cm was sold for $ 13M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018, lot 32.
