Flags I (ULAE 128)

Flags I, from 1973 is based directly on a painting of double vertical flags which Johns produced in the same year. Using a photograph of the painting as a guide Johns, working with Hiroshi Kawanishi and others at Simca Print Artists, created a masterpiece of the screenprinting medium using 31 separate screens. The dominant red white and blue color scheme also includes elements of orange, green and grey which articulate the surface. The original painting was half encaustic and half oil paint, so to produce that effect, the artist added varnish to the inks used for printing the right half of the flag.