Jasper Johns: 100 Variations on a Theme

The MFAH hosts the debut presentation of Jasper Johns: 100 Variations on a Theme. The exhibition centers on a series of 100 unique prints the artist made in 2015 over the course of 10 days in his Connecticut studio.

This extraordinary suite of prints offers an overview of Johns’s career, providing the opportunity to see his creative process at work. As a basis for this series, Johns etched his palm imprint and American Sign Language symbols onto a single intaglio plate, and then proceeded to transform that image 100 times, using string, stenciled numbers, and leaves from trees. Johns (born 1930) originally created this monoprint series to accompany what would have been a special edition of his Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Sculptures.

To give context to Johns’s recurring themes and motifs, the exhibition also features works on paper by the artist from the MFAH collections and private collections. The monoprint series is complemented by examples including Land’s End, Savarin, and Untitled.