In his work from 1972 to 1983, Jasper Johns used a distinct arrangement of crosshatched marks, traditionally considered a graphic method of adding depth and volume to an image or conveying the illusion of light in space. Johns first glimpsed this pattern on a passing car, recalling: “I only saw it for a second, but knew immediately that I was going to use it. It had all the qualities that interest me—literalness, repetitiveness, an obsessive quality, order with dumbness, and the possibility of a complete lack of meaning.” Emphasizing the flatness of the painting, Johns’s cross-hatching is gestural without being emotive; in this sense, the technique extends his larger critique of overtly expressionist models of painting. Johns forged a new model of painterly abstraction, using a schema that is repeatable and ordered but not strictly geometric or reductive.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Jean Louis Schefer, “Jasper Johns, quelle critique?,” Artstudio, no. 12, (Spring 1989): 38–46, (color ill., 45).
Nan Rosenthal and Ruth E. Fine, “The Drawings of Jasper Johns,” exh. cat. (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art; London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), 226, 228, 230, 232, fig. 69a (ill.).
Richard Shiff, “Constructing Physicality,” Art Journal, 50, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 46–47, fig. 4 (ill.).
Stephen Paul Miller, “‘Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,’ the Watergate Affair, and Johns’s Crosshatch Paintings: Surveillance and Reality-Testing in the Mid-Seventies,” Boundary 2: 20, no 2 (Summer 1993), 113.
Fred Orton, “Figuring Jasper Johns” (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 9, 188, 192, 195, fig. 64 (ill.).
Stephen Paul Miller, The Seventies Now: Culture as Surveillance (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), 233.
Stefan Neuner, Maskierung der Malerei: Jasper Johns nach Willem de Kooning (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2008), 322, 323, fig. 152 (color ill.).
John Yau, A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (New York: D.A.P./Distributed Art Press, 2008), 95.
John Ravenal, Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Inspiration and Transformation, exh. cat. (Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; New Haven: Yale University Press in partnership with the Munch Museum, 2016), 8; 9, fig. 8 (color ill); 121.
Mark Rosenthal, Joan Mitchell: Drawing into Painting, exh. cat. (New York: Cheim & Read, 2016), 7 (color ill.).
Roberta Bernstein, Heidemarie Colsman-Freyberger, Caitlin Sweeney, Betsy Stepina Zinn, and Jasper Johns, Jasper Johns: Catalogue Raisonné of Painting and Sculpture: Volume 3, Painting 1971-2014 (New York: Wildenstein Plattner Institute, 2017), 32, 33 (color ill.), cat. 192.
Roberta Bernstein, Heidemarie Colsman-Freyberger, Caitlin Sweeney, Betsy Stepina Zinn, and Jasper Johns, Jasper Johns: Catalogue Raisonné of Painting and Sculpture: Volume 5, Reference (New York: Wildenstein Plattner Institute, 2017), 162 (color ill.).
Robert Storr, Jasper Johns: Crosshatch, exh. cat. (New York: Craig F. Starr Gallery, 2019), 17, n.p, cat.8 (color ill.).
repr. in Susan Brundage, ed., “Jasper Johns, 35 Years: Leo Castelli” (Harry N. Abrams, 1993), n.pag.
Roberta Bernstein, Edith Devaney, Anna Testar, Joanne Heyler, Ed Schad, Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy; Los Angeles: The Broad, 2017), 17, 28, 172, cat. 94 (color ill.).
Carlos Basualdo and Scott Rothkopf; with with contributions by Emmanuel Alloa, Andrianna Campbell-LaFleur, Carroll Dunham, Flavio Fergonzi, Ruth Fine, Michio Hayashi, Terrance Hayes, Michael Ann Holly, Ralph Lemon, Alexander Nemerov, R.H. Quaytman, Jennifer L. Roberts, Drew Sawyer, Sandra Skurvida, Colm Tóibín, and Hannah Yohalem, Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror, exh. cat. (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art; New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2021), 17, 173, 175, 178–179, pl. 2 (color ill.), 198.
New York, Leo Castelli Gallery, “Jasper Johns,” Jan. 24–Feb. 14, 1976, no cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Seventy-Second American Exhibition,” March 13–May 9, 1976, cat. 19 (ill. p. 24).
Kassel, Museum Fridericianum, Documenta 6, June 24–Oct. 2, 1977, “Malerei Jasper Johns” cat. 1.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, “Jasper Johns,” Oct. 17, 1977–Jan, 22, 1978, no. 156; Cologne, Museum Ludwig in der Kunsthalle Köln, Feb. 10–Mar. 26, 1978, no. 121; Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Apr. 18–June 4, 1978; London, Hayward Gallery, June 21–July 30, 1978, no. 149; Tokyo, Seibu Museum of Art, Aug. 19–Sept. 26, 1978, no. 163; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Oct. 20–Dec. 10, 1978, no. 122.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, “Jasper Johns: A Retrospective,” October 20, 1996–January 21, 1997, no. 158 (color ill. p. 288). Travelled to Cologne, Museum Ludwig, March 8–June 1, 1997, no. 170 (color ill. p. 300); Tokyo, Museum of Contemporary Art, June 28–August 17, 1997, pp. 275–77, no. 158 (color ill. p. 288).
Riehen, Fondation Beyeler, “Jasper Johns: Werke aus dem Besitz des Künstler/Loans From The Artist,” Oct. 21, 1997–Feb. 15, 1998 (extended to Mar. 20), no. 11 (color ill. p. 49).
Richmond, Virginia, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Spotlight Loans: Pollock, Johns, LeWitt, June 27-Sept. 21, 2008, no cat.
Oslo, Munch Museum, Jasper Johns + Edvard Munch, June 18–Sept. 25, 2016, fig. 8; Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, as Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch: Love, Loss, and the Cycle of Life, Nov. 19, 2016–Feb. 20, 2017.
London, Royal Academy, Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth, Sept. 23–Dec. 10, 2017, cat. 94; Los Angeles, The Broad, Feb. 10–May 13, 2018.
New York, Craig F. Starr Gallery, Jasper Johns: Crosshatch, Nov. 8, 2019–Jan. 18, 2020, cat. 8.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, and concurrently, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror, Sept. 29, 2021–Feb. 13, 2022, pl. 2.
Collection of the artist.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.