Jasper Johns Corpse and Mirror (ULAE 167), 1976 Intaglio on Rives BFK Paper

Jasper Johns
Corpse and Mirror (ULAE 167), 1976
intaglio: four copper plates on Rives BFK paper
paper: 25 3/4 by 19 3/4 inches
image: 10 1/2 x 14 inches
frame: 26 1/2 x 20 6/8 inches
edition: 50 with 10 AP's & 2 PP's
signed & dated in pencil "J Johns '76" lower right
numbered in pencil lower left
printed by Atelier Crommelynck
published by Petersburg Press, 1976

Condition

Pristine condition, the colors particularly fresh, this Jasper Johns intaglio is floated in archival aluminum frame with UV plexiglass created by Bark Frameworks, New York.

Literature
Richard Field, The Prints of Jasper Johns 1960-1993: A Catalogue Raisonne, ULAE, New York, 1994, Catalogue Reference ULAE 167, n.p., another impression reproduced in full-page black and white.

Museum Collections
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
National Gallery of Art, Australia
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Exhibited
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, Jasper Johns, Prints and Multiples, 5/15 - 8/23/92, this impression.
Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jasper Johns, Prints and Multiples, 9/19 - 11/15/92, this impression.
University Art Gallery, State University of New York at Albany, Jasper Johns, Prints and Multiples, 3/2 - 4/23/93, this impression. 
The University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Alberta, 12/13/92 - 1/31/93, this impression.
The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Modern Bias / Contemporary Viewpoints, 2/22 - 3/31/96, this impression.

Labels from these exhibitions on verso of frame

About

Beginning with his 1972 painting Untitled, Jasper Johns created the motif of crosshatched lines, experimenting with colors, patterns, mirroring and reversals. According to Jasper Johns, the inspiration for his crosshatched works came from a pattern he glimpsed on a car that quickly passed him on a highway, "I only saw it for a second, but knew immediately that I was going to use it. It had all the qualities that interest me – literalness, repetitiveness, an obsessive quality, order with dumbness, and the possibility of a complete lack of meaning." Over the next ten years, Jasper Johns produced many variations of the crosshatch theme in paintings, drawings and prints.

With the Cicada crosshatch images created in the Corpse & Mirror prints, Jasper Johns sought to evoke a new form, one that is growing and splitting in new visual directions. "The Cicada title has to do with the image of something bursting through its skin, which is what they do. You have all those shells where the back splits and they've emerged. And basically that kind of splitting form is what I tried to suggest." Johns illustrated this splitting by employing lines of primary and secondary colors.

Throughout his career, Jasper Johns experimented with showing the same idea differently, repeating forms and motifs in various media. As evidenced by his work from the 1970's and early 1980's, the crosshatch motif lent itself exceptionally well to this working method. Printmaking allowed Jasper Johns to elaborate on his compositional ideas and his printmaking influenced his painting just as much as his paintings influenced his prints. In fact, the use of crosshatching in both prints and paintings is significant. Jasper Johns has taken a technique historically used in drawing and printmaking to evoke shade and depth, making it the subject of his work. Variations and unique works from this series can be viewed in the extensive collection of 1700 Jasper Johns limited editions and unique prints at the National Gallery of Art.

Author and Project Director at the Wildenstein Institute, Roberta Bernstein observes: "the crosshatchings are the first Jasper Johns paintings that can be properly called abstract, though they are more like drawings than the gestural abstractions of Jackson Pollock or Jack Tworkov, and they bristle with citations from Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, the Surrealists, and other early-twentieth-century figures."

View Jasper Johns Prints at Joseph K.Levene Fine Art, Ltd. 

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