T
© Copyrighted Artwork
This artwork is protected by copyright. We cannot display images of works by artists who passed away after 1954.
See the original at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York
Three Flags
by Jasper Johns, 1958
Artwork Details
Details
- Year
- 1958
- Medium
- Encaustic on canvas
- Size
- 78.4 cm × 115.6 cm × 12.7 cm
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American artist Jasper Johns painted this Three Flags in 1958, stacking three American flags in decreasing size. The smallest sits in front, creating a relief-like projection from the wall. It's both a painting of flags and an object made of flags, confusing categories of representation and reality.
Johns used encaustic (pigmented wax), building up textured surfaces that catch light. The flag was "something the mind already knows," freeing Johns to explore formal problems without inventing imagery. Three Flags sold at auction in 1980 for $1 million, then a record for a living artist. It hangs in the colorful gallery at MoMA.
