.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
In 1960 Tatyana Grossman gave a lithographic stone to Jasper Johns and simultaneously began his printmaking career and the alignment of her studio Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) with the rebirth of American printmaking. At ULAE, Grossman fostered a new creative environment where young artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine and James Rosenquist made their first prints. When Grossman founded the modest space on Long Island, there was no other lithographic studio in the United States dedicated to the needs of the artist. Lithography, considered the most painterly of printing techniques, was largely absent from the artistic landscape in late 1950's America.
Target is the first product of Grossman's initial efforts to introduce Johns to lithography. For his first published print Johns returned to a subject first explored in drawings from the late 1950's and restricted himself to the lithographic crayon, reimagining the well-known symbol of the target as unstable and mysterious even within its strict geometric confines. In the image we can see Johns discovering the qualities the medium while also staying true to his style of mark making. In his Target, traces of the artist's gesture coalesce to form a single image. Each hatched line becomes not only a telltale mark of the artist, but also a familiar component of the symbol. Johns has since returned to this well-known image again and again, and thus far has produced fourteen prints alone depicting the symbol. Target is an important and prophetic monument, not only of the post-war American printmaking renaissance, but also of Johns's career as master printmaker.
Target is the first product of Grossman's initial efforts to introduce Johns to lithography. For his first published print Johns returned to a subject first explored in drawings from the late 1950's and restricted himself to the lithographic crayon, reimagining the well-known symbol of the target as unstable and mysterious even within its strict geometric confines. In the image we can see Johns discovering the qualities the medium while also staying true to his style of mark making. In his Target, traces of the artist's gesture coalesce to form a single image. Each hatched line becomes not only a telltale mark of the artist, but also a familiar component of the symbol. Johns has since returned to this well-known image again and again, and thus far has produced fourteen prints alone depicting the symbol. Target is an important and prophetic monument, not only of the post-war American printmaking renaissance, but also of Johns's career as master printmaker.