Untitled (ULAE 309)
21 x 16 inchesUntitled (ULAE 309), 2012
paper: 21 x 16 inches
image: 11 3/4 x 8 inches
frame: 22 x 17 inches
edition: 30 with 8 AP's
signed & dated in pencil "Jasper Johns '12" lower right
numbered lower left in pencil
printed by Doug Bennett and John Lund
published by LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies, Columbia University, New York
© 2024 Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY> Literature
Carlos Basualdo, Scott Rothkopf, Jasper Johns Mind/Mirror, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2021, another impression reproduced plate 47, pg. 298.
To be included in the forthcoming update to: The Prints of Jasper Johns: A Catalogue Raisonne, ULAE, New York, Catalogue Reference ULAE 309.
Exhibted
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Jasper Johns Mind/Mirror, September 29, 2021-February 13, 2022, another impression exhibited.
Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah Jasper Johns & John Lund: Masters in the Print Studio, March 23-June 15, 2014, another impression exhibited.
International Print Center New York, New Prints 2013/Winter, January 18-March 9, 2013, another impression exhibited.
Selected Museum Collections
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Additional Photos
Full Image
Image Detail
Signature & Date lower right
Edition Number & LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies blindstamp lower left
The imagery in the Postcard series relates to several of Johns’s earlier series and includes circular motifs that date back to the artist’s Device Circle of the 1950s, figures of a man and a boy from the artist’s, Seasons, from the mid-1980s and a vase in profile, which first appeared in his work in the early 1970s.
POSTCARDS RETROSPECTIVE SERIES
Johns Postcards were originally exhibited at Matthew Marks Gallery, Los Angeles November 2, 2012–January 5, 2013. The oil and encaustic canvases and the related watercolor and crayon monotypes are brightly colored in contrast to the bronzes with their dark patinas.
Encaustic and oil on five canvases
"5 Postcards (as well as several of its predecessors in the 1980s and '90s such as The Seasons or Mirror's Edge [1992)) generates an ineffable emotional weather rather than pursuing a specific plot. Here, Johns's ambition—to describe "the space in which different systems exist" is realized as a composition of human proximities: The "systems" in question (if one can still call them that) are rooted in body language. And the profile is well suited to capture such sensations, since profiles are all contiguity. Let me catalogue the kinds of affective charge that the various profiles I've cited carry: 1) side-by-side, the father?) and son(?) sharing a kind of intimacy that exists outside language and perhaps even visual acknowledgment in a purely physical frisson of adjacency; 2) face-to-face, the mirror portraits staging a charged, endless, bilateral regard, a stand-off or, alternately, a condition of rapt absorption, as when gazing at a lover; and 3) meshing, the two circles in each painting nearly touching, giving the impression of mutual rotation whose implied friction is mechanical (and I was surprised to learn that 5 Postcards was a single work instead of five autonomous variations on a theme. When I asked Johns about this, he mentioned that, just as one might send different postcards to different friends while away on a trip, so too, this work is composed of five accounts of a single situation (or set of motifs). He painted the situation until he was done, until the idea was exhausted. Seriality in late-twentieth-century art is typically understood in terms of rule-based permutations, as a kind of computational logic that mimics the machine. But in Johns's hands seriality pursues the recombinant rhythms of thought: the life span of an idea. In 5 Postcards five canvases go from bright to heavy, flat to texturedand the father?) represented in the first three disappears, but I suspect this kind of implied narrative is beside the point. What the five paintings of 5 Postcards register is a life: the life of a material situation. And nothing lasts forever.” - David Joselit, 2012
Acrylic and graphite over five intaglio proofs on paper mounted on Japanese paper
Jasper Johns Untitled, 2012 was included in Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
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The condition of Jasper Johns prints plays a pivotal role in preserving the integrity and value of these artworks. The presence of mat staining, fox marks and attenuated colors can significantly impact the overall aesthetic and historical integrity of these artworks. When considering a purchase of a Jasper Johns print, it is crucial to be wary of dealers who claim prints are in good condition despite such issues, as this may be a deliberate attempt to mislead buyers. Transparency is imperative in the art market and dealers who purposefully omit condition details are not acting in the best interest of the collector. It is also advisable to avoid dealers who artificially enhance colors in photos, distorting the true condition of the artwork. Choosing dealers who provide accurate representations, even if it reveals imperfections, ensures that buyers make well-informed decisions, maintaining the authenticity and value of Jasper Johns prints over time.
