The San Diego Museum of Art’s new exhibition, “Jasper Johns: Drawings and Prints,” offers works on paper by a renowned and enduring American artist of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Running through Oct. 27, the show features 14 significant works on paper dating from 1960 to 2021, including six drawings on loan from the artist.
The exhibit offers a glimpse into Johns’ creativity through his innovative use of mediums and images in prints and rare drawings, part of an era that redefined contemporary art.
Works on display include Two Flags (1960), Figure 2 (1973) and several from The Seasons series (1985–1991).
Additionally, the show includes works that feature one of Johns’ most enigmatic motifs, a subject of speculation in the art world.
The central figure in Green Angel, a colored etching from 1991 that the artist gifted to the museum, along with related works, in 2006, is a mysterious juxtaposition of shapes that he used in multiple pieces of art while never revealing his source of inspiration.
In 2021, art critic John Yau published evidence that the Green Angel motif very likely arose from the contours of a sculpture by Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) entitled Torso of the Woman Centaur and Minotaur.
Now those who attend the exhibition may take a guess at what Johns might have been hinting.