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Lot Essay
In 1959 Jasper Johns shifted his focus from targets, maps, and flags to begin working on modular grids with numbers and letters as his subjects. Intent on using ready made imagery which is already known to the viewer, Johns famously stated he "found room to work at other levels." In the grids he juxtaposed rational order with painterly spontaneity resulting in compositions both cool in concept and warm in Abstract Expressionist technique.
By 1961, the artist began his final variation on the numbers theme in his 0 through 9 series in which he superimposed each number over the last. In this landmark series, the layering of numbers results in a complex composition of recognizable forms glimpsed through layers of abstraction. As the series title implies, one sees "through" each number to the others subverting the progressive system inherent to the notion of numbering. These compelling compositions draw the viewer's close inspection, objectifying what is otherwise not registered as an object, but understood as an idea.
Most important in this seminal series are his five large-scale 0 through 9 paintings and works on paper in which he takes the series through elaborate permutations. Johns rendered just one of the five paintings exclusively in shimmering grays, a vigorous composition, convincing in painterly prowess despite the monochromatically restricted pallet. Johns also exploited the possibilities of grays in his works rendered in Sculpt-metal, lead and aluminum. "In the aluminum casts the numbers read as solid layers, suggesting that one could peel back the 9 that appears to sit on top of the stack and reveal the others, one by one" (R. Bernstein, Jasper Johns's Numbers: Uncertain Signs, Cleveland 2003, p.15). In the present example, the lustrous aluminum surface is rich in variation, the milky grays absorbing and casting back light. The unobscured number 9 seems to be a kind of portait, convincing in figural shape, while the other numbers hidden"below" it are implied but not decipherable, reconciling abstraction and figuration.
Another example from the series of four is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a second example is in the collection of the artist.
By 1961, the artist began his final variation on the numbers theme in his 0 through 9 series in which he superimposed each number over the last. In this landmark series, the layering of numbers results in a complex composition of recognizable forms glimpsed through layers of abstraction. As the series title implies, one sees "through" each number to the others subverting the progressive system inherent to the notion of numbering. These compelling compositions draw the viewer's close inspection, objectifying what is otherwise not registered as an object, but understood as an idea.
Most important in this seminal series are his five large-scale 0 through 9 paintings and works on paper in which he takes the series through elaborate permutations. Johns rendered just one of the five paintings exclusively in shimmering grays, a vigorous composition, convincing in painterly prowess despite the monochromatically restricted pallet. Johns also exploited the possibilities of grays in his works rendered in Sculpt-metal, lead and aluminum. "In the aluminum casts the numbers read as solid layers, suggesting that one could peel back the 9 that appears to sit on top of the stack and reveal the others, one by one" (R. Bernstein, Jasper Johns's Numbers: Uncertain Signs, Cleveland 2003, p.15). In the present example, the lustrous aluminum surface is rich in variation, the milky grays absorbing and casting back light. The unobscured number 9 seems to be a kind of portait, convincing in figural shape, while the other numbers hidden"below" it are implied but not decipherable, reconciling abstraction and figuration.
Another example from the series of four is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a second example is in the collection of the artist.