Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Three Flags
by Unknown Artist, 1958
Artwork Details
Details
- Year
- 1958
- Medium
- Encaustic on canvas
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Jasper Johns created Three Flags in 1958 using his signature technique of encaustic (pigmented hot wax) over newspaper collage on canvas. Three American flags are stacked in decreasing size, the smallest projecting outward from the surface. The result is both flat and three-dimensional, a painting that's also a relief sculpture.
Johns chose the flag because it's already flat and two-dimensional: a ready-made design that let him focus on the act of painting itself rather than depicting something from life. By repeating and scaling it, he turned a patriotic symbol into a formal problem about surface, depth, and perception.
The painting hangs at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Whitney purchased it in 1980 for $1 million, then a record for a living American artist. Johns's flags, targets, and numbers helped launch Pop Art and challenged Abstract Expressionism's dominance in the late 1950s.
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About Three Flags
It's at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The Whitney paid $1 million in 1980, a record at the time for a living American artist.
Johns used encaustic, a technique mixing pigment with hot wax, over collaged newspaper. The wax dries almost instantly, preserving each brushstroke's texture and creating a rich, layered surface.
Three Flags helped bridge Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. By painting a familiar, flat symbol rather than expressing inner emotions, Johns challenged the art world's assumptions about what painting could be.
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