Jasper Johns - Editions & Works on Paper New York Tuesday, April 16, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “The Cicada title has to do with the image of something bursting through its skin, which is what they do. You have all those shells where the back splits and they've emerged. And basically that kind of splitting form is what I tried to suggest.”
    —Jasper Johns

    Beginning in 1972, Jasper Johns created his motif of crosshatched lines, experimenting with colors, patterns, mirrors, and reversals that he developed and re-worked over the next twelve years; the lines would soon manifest in a variety of paintings, works on paper, drawings, screenprints, and lithographs. According to Johns, the inspiration for his crosshatching came from "a pattern of slanted lines on the diagonal, a sort of cross-hatching that he glimpsed on a car that quickly passed him on the Long Island Expressway,” the artist recalled. "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."

     

    In Cicada, the spirited primary colors of red, yellow, and blue burst through interspersed inky black lines, an emergence that recalls the life cycle of a cicada: dormant underground for over a decade, the insect debuts to the surface as a nymph, its shell soon splitting down the middle and cracking open so the creature can fly free. Further echoing the summery sound of a cicada’s mating buzz, Johns’ crosshatched lines offer a visual cacophony, a composition charged with such dynamic energy that it nearly vibrates from its paper.

    • Literature

      Gemini G.E.L. 923
      Universal Limited Art Editions 213

    • Artist Biography

      Jasper Johns

      American • 1930

      Jasper Johns is a painter and printmaker who holds a foundational place in twentieth century art history. Quoting the evocative gestural brushstroke of the Abstract Expressionists, Johns represented common objects such as flags, targets, masks, maps and numbers: He sought to explore things "seen and not looked at, not examined" in pictorial form.  Drawing from common commercial and 'readymade' objects, such as newspaper clippings, Ballantine Ale and Savarin Coffee cans, Johns was a bridge to Pop, Dada and Conceptual art movements.

      Beyond the historical significance, each work by Johns is individually considered in sensuous form. A curiosity of medium led him to employ a range of materials from encaustic and commercial house paint to lithography, intaglio and lead relief.

      View More Works

140

Cicada (G. 923, U.L.A.E. 213)

1981
Lithograph in colors, on Arches 88 paper, with full margins.
I. 26 3/8 x 20 1/4 in. (67 x 51.4 cm)
S. 34 7/8 x 25 3/4 in. (88.6 x 65.4 cm)

Signed, dated and numbered 'P.P. II' in pencil (one of two printer's proofs in Roman numerals, the edition was 58 and 12 artist's proofs), published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles (with their blindstamps and inkstamp on the reverse), unframed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$20,000 - 30,000 

Sold for $33,020

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Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 16 - 17 April