Statement:

“One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag,” Johns has said of this work, “and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it.” 

Biography:

Born in 1930, Jasper Johns moved to New York in 1949 and began paintings influenced by abstract expressionism. Introduced to Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham in the mid 1950's, his work changed radically. The first of many one-person exhibitions at Leo Castelli Gallery (1958) led to his inclusion the following year in the Museum of Modern Art's landmark 16 Americans. One-person exhibitions of his paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture have been organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art (1977), the National Gallery of Art 1990), and the Museum of Modern Art (1986, 1996). The artist lives and works in Connecticut.