Artist: Jasper Johns
Title: Summer (Blue)
Medium: Lithograph in Colors
Year: 1985-1991
Image Size: 9.5" x 6.25"
Sheet Size: 16.25" x 11.125"
Edition: 213/225
Publisher: Brooke Alexander, Inc., New York.
Printer: Universal Limited Art Editions, West Islip, NY
Inscription: Signed, dated, and numbered on front lower margin
Documentation: Gallery Certificate of Authenticity
"Summer (Blue)" is a significant lithograph by Jasper Johns, created between 1985 and 1991. This work exemplifies Johns' innovative approach to printmaking, utilizing two plates to produce a composition that combines abstract and figurative elements. The lithograph is characterized by its vivid blue hues and intricate patterns, reflecting the artist's exploration of color and form. The work is part of an edition of 225, with each impression signed, dated, and numbered by the artist. It was printed by Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) and published by Brooke Alexander, Inc., both renowned for their collaborations with prominent artists.
"Summer (Blue)" has been included in several prestigious exhibitions, underscoring its importance in the art historical canon. Notably, it was featured in the exhibition "Jasper Johns: The Seasons, Prints and Related Works," held at Brooke Alexander Editions in New York from November 9, 1991, to January 4, 1992. This exhibition highlighted a series of works by Johns that delve into the themes of time and nature through his distinctive artistic lens. The lithograph is held in several esteemed collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. These institutions are recognized for their commitment to preserving and showcasing significant works of American art, and their acquisition of "Summer (Blue)" reflects the lithograph's importance in Johns' body of work.
A distinguished example of Jasper Johns' printmaking, "Summer (Blue)" embodies his innovative approach to art and his exploration of complex themes through the medium of lithography. Its inclusion in major exhibitions and holdings in prominent museums attest to its enduring relevance and impact in the field of contemporary art.
"Summer (Blue)" is signed, dated, and numbered on front lower margin and includes a certificate of authenticity from Modern Artifact.
About Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns is an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work has been central to the development of postwar art in the United States. Born in Augusta, Georgia, in 1930 and raised in South Carolina, Johns pursued an early interest in art, studying briefly at the University of South Carolina before relocating to New York in 1949. There he attended the Parsons School of Design for a short time before serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. His return to New York in the early 1950s marked the beginning of a career that would position him at the forefront of a transition between Abstract Expressionism and later movements including Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptual art.
Johns' breakthrough came in 1954–55 with his painting Flag, a work that employed encaustic, oil, and collage to depict the American flag in a manner that was both familiar and newly estranging. By choosing a universally recognized symbol rather than a purely abstract composition, Johns challenged prevailing expectations of painting as a medium of personal expression. Instead, his work called attention to the use of preexisting signs and motifs, opening the way for a reconsideration of the role of imagery in modern art. In the following years, Johns produced paintings, prints, and objects featuring targets, numbers, maps, and other recurring motifs. These works were characterized by their material experimentation, often incorporating encaustic, collage, plaster casts, or found objects to blur distinctions between painting and sculpture.
Johns was closely associated with Robert Rauschenberg, as well as composers John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham, forming a circle of artists who sought alternatives to the gestural intensity of Abstract Expressionism. Their collaborative and interdisciplinary exchanges played a significant role in shaping the artistic climate of the 1950s and 1960s. Johns’s work, while formally restrained, emphasized the idea of repetition, seriality, and the investigation of perception, exerting an influence that extended across generations.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Johns continued to revisit and expand upon earlier motifs while also incorporating new imagery. His “crosshatch" paintings, begun in the mid-1970s, introduced dense networks of interwoven marks, often rendered in subdued palettes, which explored structure, pattern, and rhythm. In later decades, Johns integrated more personal references into his work, drawing from art history, memory, and allegory, though his art has consistently resisted simple interpretation.
Printmaking has been a major component of Johns' practice. Working with publishers such as Universal Limited Art Editions, he produced technically innovative prints that paralleled and extended his painted imagery. His contributions to the field have been widely recognized as central to the revival of printmaking as a major artistic medium in the postwar period.
Johns has been the subject of major retrospectives, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1977), the Museum of Modern Art (1996–97), and a joint exhibition at the Whitney and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2021). His work is represented in leading collections worldwide. Over the course of his career, Johns has received numerous honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
Jasper Johns' practice has been instrumental in reshaping the trajectory of American art after World War II. By turning to everyday symbols and objects, he expanded the possibilities of painting and influenced a wide spectrum of movements that followed. His work remains a touchstone for debates about representation, perception, and the nature of the art object itself.
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