Signs Under Pressure: Jasper Johns Lithographs

In 1954, Jasper Johns painted an American flag that he had seen in a dream. Maps, targets, and numbers soon followed. These familiar signs became images he returned to again and again, testing how they changed across different materials and forms. 

When Johns began making prints in 1960, lithography gave him new ways to transform these motifs through transfer, ink, and pressure. ​​

This exhibition presents a selection of Johns’ lithographs from the 1960s and 1970s, the period in which he first began working seriously in print. The works feature some of his best-known subjects and compositional devices, including layering, reversal, and mirroring. Through these transformations, everyday signs become harder to pin down, charged by the process that made them.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website