Provenance:
Bearing label from the Collection of Carter Burden
 
Literature: 
Gemini G.E.L. 97

Lot Essay:

'Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.' 
-Jasper Johns, 1964 

There are certain subjects that are quintessential Jasper Johns. Targets, flags, maps, numbers, ale cans, and letters are among the most iconic and recognizable. As an artist, Johns works and reworks subjects until there seems to be no avenue, angle, or shadow left to explore. The depth and intensity with which he attacks a subject are exactly what makes him one of America’s greatest living artists. An artist with such influence and scope that his recent retrospective titled ‘Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror’ filled the walls of two esteemed museums simultaneously: The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Gray Alphabets, (Lot 30), presents like a muted field of color at first glance, it’s four shades of gray falling backwards and forwards from your field of view as you stand before the artwork. However, a closer look reveals a calculated and intricate formal investigation of the Latin alphabet. The artwork consists of a 27 x 27 grid of lower-case letters, evoking moveable type or stencils, running in order from right to left, and top to bottom beginning with a blank space in the upper left corner. Gray Alphabets is one of the largest prints Johns ever produced and is the result of an intense and immersive collaboration with the master printers at Gemini G.E.L., the iconic artist’s workshop and publisher based in Los Angeles. To create the depth and texture of shading in this artwork, the artist had to understand not only the medium of lithography but also the play between the shades of gray chosen for the artwork. We see not only the classic Johns strategy of working and reworking a familiar symbol, but also the skill, precision, and knowledge of medium. 

Editions of Gray Alphabets are owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian, and the British Museum. Jasper Johns lives in Connecticut and remains active in his studio at age ninety-two.