Johns’ drawings are distinctive in part for his use of several techniques in the same work (including freehand drawing tracing and imprinting) as well as for his superb handling of a variety of media, including graphite pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, pastel and watercolour. While his drawings are intimately connected with his paintings and prints, they are not necessarily produced in preparation for other works - often they are a way of refocusing attention on the subjects of the paintings, to provoke new thoughts about the images. This fascinating and beautifully illustrated study casts new light on one of America’s most important contemporary artists.

"Published in conjunction with the exhibition 'The condition of being here: drawings by Jasper Johns', organized by the Menil Collection, Houston ... November 3, 2018-January 27, 2019"--Title page verso.

Text by Thomas Crow.

By John Yau

"This lavishly illustrated retrospective of Jasper Johns's work offers a new perspective on the artist's work based on his own enduring fascination with mirroring and doubles"--

Catalog for the exhibition "Jasper Johns: 'Something Resembling Truth'" at Royal Academy of Arts, London, 23 September-10 December 2017, and The Broad, Los Angeles, 10 February-13 May 2018.

This exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see around 100 exceptional drawings created using the exquisite metalpoint technique. It features works by some of the greatest artists working from the late 14th century to the present including Rogier van der Weyden, Petrus Christus, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Elder, Lucas van Leyden, Rembrandt, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, Otto Dix, Jasper Johns and Bruce Nauman. Works drawn from the British Museum's superb collection of metalpoint drawings sit alongside major loans from European and American museums as well as private collections, including four sheets by Leonardo da Vinci from the Royal Collection.--British Museum website.

After completing the installation of his 1996 retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art, Jasper Johns retreated to his studio in Connecticut to wipe the slate clean, beginning a body of work that was a dramatic departure from anything he had made before. This volume reproduces for the first time the complete series of those magnificent works that Johns, one of our greatest living artists, has made over the last eight years.The first painting in this new series included a string hanging from upper right to lower left, generating a curve called a "catenary," and this curve became the compositional backbone of the entire series. Johns produced a total of 61 paintings, drawings and prints based on the catenary theme, all of which are reproduced in this volume. The work is saturated with autobiographical references, both transparent and opaque, while it simultaneously encourages multiple layers of meaning. Sensual surfaces, fragile constructions, and formal rigor meet allusions to key moments in the history of modern art and motifs from Johns's earlier work. The poetry of Johns's catenary series is explored in an illustrated essay by the scholar Scott Rothkopf, published alongside the catalogue's 51 color plates.

Tipped-in: One sheet (1 unnumbered page: illustrations (chiefly color); 31 cm), contains artist and authors information.