There's excitement in the South Carolina Upstate, as the Greenville County Museum of Art opens an extraordinary exhibition of works by the world's greatest living artist—South Carolinian Jasper Johns.

The exhibition Jasper Johns: Look Homeward features fifty-six paintings, drawings, lithographs, silkscreens, and mixed media works that date from 1960 through 2005. It samples iconic flags, targets, and numbers as well as the intimate themes the artist has explored in works created since 1981.

Sponsored by Carolina First, Jasper Johns: Look Homeward showcases five important new works and examples of some thirty limited edition prints that will be acquired by the Museum through a six-million-dollar fundraising campaign. These acquisitions are integrated with the Museum's existing collection of early Johns works and extended with loans from private collectors and the artist himself.

The completion of the Jasper Johns collection will position Greenville's Museum among a special few worldwide with such prestigious offerings by major American artists.

Heading North for His Art

Born in 1930, Jasper Johns grew up in South Carolina, then moved to New York at twenty to pursue a career in art. He became an overnight success in the 1950s, challenging the prevalent abstract expressionists with object-oriented mixed media paintings that paved the way for the era of Pop art.

His flags, targets, letters, and numbers are "things the mind already knows but really doesn't see," Johns has said. These forms became the basis for exhaustive experimentation and revision. The flags of the artist's earliest work often reappear in later paintings as hints and reminders. Cross-hatched textural paintings, prominent in the artist's work during the 1970s, found new meaning in the borders and pictorial elements as Johns embraced more figurative subjects in the later years of the century.

A Thorough Look at His Career

Look Homeward presents examples from every phase of Johns' career. Target, 1960, was the artist's first lithograph. His exploration and refinement of the printmaking media is demonstrated in lithographs, etching, intaglio, and multi-screen limited edition prints that the artist explored at cutting-edge printmaking studios here and abroad.

The exhibition also features important examples of the ways that Johns refers to other artists in his work. A cartoon-like rendering of a face drawn from a Picasso painting becomes a theme for a series of works that focus on memories of childhood. Mona Lisa peers out from several compositions, perhaps referencing her creator, Leonardo da Vinci, but more likely voicing Johns' appreciation for Marcel Duchamp, a French mixed-media artist whose work also focused on images that could be used, often irreverently, to signify something else.

There is certainly humor in Johns' work. And although he presents a continuing challenge for critics and students of art, Johns also presents us all an opportunity to explore and enjoy. In the same way a good movie can be watched many times, the work of Jasper Johns is a continuing adventure for all viewers.

The Greenville County Museum of Art has organized a series of public programs to facilitate that adventure. A gallery talk, Learning to "Read" Jasper Johns, is scheduled for February 16 at 6:30 pm, repeating on Sunday, February 19 at 2. Take an Object, a Jasper Johns treasure hunt, takes place on Thursday, March 9 at 6:30 pm and Sunday, March 12 at 2. Greenville printmaker Phil Garrett provides a demonstration on the intricacies of creating original prints on Thursday, March 23, at 6:30 pm. These programs are all free and open to the public.

The Center for Museum Education will offer a printmaking workshop for families on Saturday, March 25, from 2 until 4 pm. The workshop is also free, but reservations are suggested. The Center is planning a two-day monotype workshop with Phil Garrett, to be held March 4 and March 11 from 10:30 until 4:30. Tuition for that course is $149. For information about these and other activities, contact the Center at 864/271-7570, extension 12 or send an email to Anne Barr.

Free Tours

The Museum will offer free tours of the exhibition on Sunday and Tuesday at 2pm, beginning May 7. Tours are also available by appointment for groups of ten or more. To make arrangements for a tour, contact Museum Educator Terri Steck by telephone (864/271-7570, extension 17) or email.