How the Walker Art Center Acquired Every Print Jasper Johns Ever Made

Art historian Isabelle Loring Wallace takes a close look at the recurring motif of the fractured face in Jasper Johns's art, revealing references as disparate as Pablo Picasso's Woman in a Straw Hat, a drawing made by a schizophrenic girl in the 1950s, and a slouching demon in Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim altarpiece.

Jasper Johns's Flags (1967–1968) invites viewers to look at two US flags: one in green, black, and orange, the other in grayscale. After gazing on the upper flag then looking at a dot on the gray flag, viewers should see the time-honored red, white, and blue, but only as an afterimage. "What makes this work so compelling," writes Walker Interpretation Fellow Alexandra Nicome in a Memorial Day reflection, "is the simultaneous awe and intimacy we get to experience with this shared symbol. In Johns’s print, a commonplace icon only exists in its 'true' form when I make it in my mind."