Jasper Johns

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Description

Jasper Johns
Untitled (Gray Painting with Spoon)
signed, titled and dated 1962 on the reverse
encaustic on canvas with ruler, magnet and spoon
26 1/8 by 20 1/4 in. 66.4 by 51.4 cm.

Provenance

Leo Castelli, New York (no. 160)
Ileana Sonnabend, Paris
Galleria Sperone, Turin
Private Collection
Collection of Michael and Judy Steinhardt, New York
Private Collection, Pennsylvania

Exhibited

Paris, Sonnabend Gallery, Jasper Johns, Novemeber - December 1962
London, Whitechapel Gallery, Jasper Johns, 1964, cat. no. 40, illustrated, (titled Grey Painting with Spoon)
New York, The Jewish Museum, Jasper Johns, 1964, cat. no. 65
Turin, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, New-Dada e Pop Art Newyorkesi, April - May 1969, pl. 16, illustrated in color, (titled Grey Painting with Spoon)

Literature

Max Kozloff, Jasper Johns, New York, 1967, pl. 90

Catalogue Note

One of Johns's most important paintings from the early 1960s, Gray Painting with Spoon, shows the artist as the supreme master of gray paint, enriched by his characteristic bravura brushwork. The impact of Marcel Duchamp is revealed through the juxtaposition of the readymade object, in this case the spoon and the ruler, and the painted canvas. The spoon refers to Duchamp's Locking Spoon of 1957, a readymade of a spoon attached backwards to the lock on the artist's apartment door, which Johns saw when he visited Duchamp shortly after first meeting him. The ruler evokes the craft of painting and the artist's drafting tools. It suggests the role of the painter as a mediator between life and art, reality and representation.