Jasper Johns (b. 1930), "Bent Stencil," from "Fragment--According to What" series, 1971, Lithograph

Jasper Johns
(b. 1930)
"Bent Stencil," from "Fragment--According to What" series, 1971
Lithograph in colors on paper
Edition: 72/79
Signed, dated, and numbered in pencil near the upper sheet edge, at left: J. Johns; Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, CA, pub., with their blindstamps on the recto, and their pale black ink stamps and pencil work number on the verso of the upper left corner
Image/Sheet: 27.625" H x 20.25" W
Provenance: The Estate of Oscar and Barbara Leidenfrost

Other Notes: Proceeds to benefit non-profit organizations and educational institutions.

In 1970, Jasper Johns created a series of seven prints with the publisher Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles, California that was effectively a revisitation of the artist's 1964 painting, titled "According to What."

This expansive painting, measuring seven feet tall by sixteen feet wide, was created at what is arguably the apex of Jasper Johns's career. Created by joining several canvases together, "According to What" is more accurately described as a mixed-media assemblage than simply a painting. Although the work includes painted areas that are instantly recognizable as the work of Jasper Johns, the artist also stenciled the names of colors vertically on the canvas before affixing a variety of found objects and cast body parts onto its surface. Twelve years after it was created, the art historian Patricia Kaplan authored an essay on the painting where she described it as "one of the artist's most challenging and disturbing works" created to date.

This particular print, titled "Bent Stencil," revisits the very center of Johns's painting "According to What." In the 1964 assemblage, Johns has enclosed ten circles of color within black, white, and grey squares before stacking them vertically from the top to the bottom of the expansive, multi-piece canvas. "Bent Stencil" reproduces three of these circles found at the bottom of the canvas, which effectively divides the composition of "According to What" in half. A notable distinction between the prints and the painting is Johns's use of a muted, rather than brightly colored palette in this lithographic reprisal, "Blue Stencil."

Other impressions from Johns's "Fragment - According to What" lithographic series can be found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Related artists include Chuck Close, Joseph Cornell, Jim Dine, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Philip Guston, Donald Judd, Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella, Bob Thompson, and Cy Twombly.
Condition Report: Overall generally good condition. Full sheet with deckled edges. Very minor toning to the sheet, showing mostly at the upper left. A tiny, 0.125" horizontal tear with attendant pigment disturbance in the upper section of the right vertical edge. An unobtrusive, nickel-sized, faint surface stain in the darkest blue-black portion of the right vertical edge. A pale foxmark in the deckled edge at the upper left corner. Two dime-sized pieces of old glassine paper tape at the verso of the upper sheet corners. The sheet is loose, not mounted.Framed under Plexiglas: 28.25" H x 20.75" W x 1.5" D Condition reports are offered as a courtesy and are typically published in Moran's catalogue or can be made available upon request. The absence of a condition report does not imply that an item is free from defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of others. Buyers are responsible for determining to their own satisfaction the true nature and condition of any lot prior to bidding. Though buyers are not legally required to inspect lots prior to purchase, failure to do so may constitute a waiver of complaint that an item was not delivered in a condition equal to the existent condition at the auction.