“Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.”

 —Jasper Johns

Mounted in 1966 at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, the exhibition Recent Still Life, Painting and Sculpture brought together artists such as Grace Hartigan, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Richard Diebenkorn, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Giorgio Morandi and many others. Amongst a group of artists now considered to be heavyweights of 20th century art, the museum chose Jasper Johns as the artist to be featured on their promotional poster. Utilizing Johns’ signature stencil-like font, the lithograph Recent Still Life marks the first time that Johns used his light bulb motif in his printmaking – an object that the artist would repeatedly incorporate into his multi-disciplinary practice. In Johns’ work, the light bulb transcends its commonplace connotations to become a witty commentary on the process of making art, a symbol of the necessary conditions for artistic creation and viewing – without light, what can we see? Continuing his reworking of light bulb iconography, Johns reimagined the same composition of Recent Still Life in 1969, this time translating the painterly black wash of the background into a solid lead relief.