About This Artwork

Jasper Johns (American, born 1930)
printed by Bill Goldston and James V. Smith
published by Universal Limited Art Editions (American, founded 1955)

Corpse and Mirror, 1976

Lithograph on black wove paper
700 x 930 mm (image); 780 x 1005 mm (sheet)
U.L.A.E. Collection acquired through a challenge grant of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Dittmer; restricted gift of supporters of the Department of Prints and Drawings; Centennial Endowment; Margaret Fisher Endowment Fund, 1983.565

Universal Limited Art Editions 168 artist's proof; Sparks 117 artist's proof

Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

This complex print is filled with art historical references, a working mode that continues to inform Johns’s art. The folded composition (six panels, each of which is book-matched to its neighbor), refers to the Surrealist parlor game Exquisite Corpse, in which each player draws part of a figure on a piece of paper folded to mask the other players’ drawings.