Perilous Night by Jasper Johns

Flag I by Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Flags I, 1973, screenprint, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection 1994.82.8

At the age of twenty-four, living in New York City, he made the decision, as he describes it, to stop becoming an artist and actually be one. A dream led him to paint the American flag. He began to paint other iconic "found" images such as targets and numbers. These works were the polar opposite of abstract expressionism, the reigning style in New York City in the 1950s. Abstract expressionism was about the individual artist's cathartic self-expression, but Johns' paintings were cool, disengaged, and impersonal. He also painted recognizable images, which had all but disappeared from the art of that time.

Over the next four years, only close friends saw these new paintings. In 1958, with his first show at the Leo Castelli Gallery, Johns became an immediate success. His work has remained at the forefront of American art ever since.