About this artwork
Jasper Johns has worked with stencils of alphabet letters since the 1950s, yet this is his only painting that shows a single sequence from A to Z. The artist made Alphabet the same year in which he introduced riots of primary color-augmented by touches of green, pink, orange, pale blue, gray, brown, black, and white into his work. We might try to read this painting in order, letter by letter, from top left to bottom right. But the jumble of strokes, daubs, smudges, and collaged fragments of painted paper scatters our eyes across the animated surface, challenging any sense of sequential progress. In this way, two different stylistic approaches orderly grids of stenciled forms versus brushy gestures are set against one another.
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Status
- On View, Gallery 292
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Department
- Contemporary Art
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Artist
- Jasper Johns
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Title
- Alphabet
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Place
- United States (Object made in:)
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Date
- Made 1959
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Medium
- encaustic and paper on hardboard
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Dimensions
- 30.5 × 26.7 cm (12 × 10 1/2 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Edlis Neeson Collection
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Reference Number
- 2015.121
Extended information about this artwork
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.
