Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns (born 1930) is an influential American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, celebrated for his innovative approach to abstraction. Born in Georgia, Johns studied briefly at the University of South Carolina before moving to New York, where he was part of the avant-garde art scene. Johns rose to prominence in the 1950s with his groundbreaking paintings of flags, targets, and numbers, blurring the boundaries between the object and its representation. His work is characterized by a rich surface of dripped and stenciled paint, and by his use of encaustic, which gives a sculptural quality to his paintings. His work, like the iconic "Flag" (1954-55), challenged the emotional expressiveness of Abstract Expressionism, paving the way for Pop Art and Minimalism. Johns's explorations of perception, symbolism, and the materiality of painting have made him one of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Today, his works are held in major collections worldwide.