Images

https://piction.clevelandart.org/cma/ump.di?e=F4B331212E220988C494D9A66CE9601EA1B2D7AC53FE66DF9C4F97BB80B97E10&s=24247294&se=1694269457&v=3&f=1973.28_o2.jpg

Additional Views

Jul 23, 2007

Reconstruction

1959

Jasper Johns

(American, b. 1930)

America, 20th century

Encaustic and collage on canvas

Framed: 154 x 114.5 x 4 cm (60 5/8 x 45 1/16 x 1 9/16 in.); Unframed: 155 x 111.7 cm (61 x 44 in.)

Purchase, Accessions Reserve Fund, and Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1973.28

Location

not on view

Description

In the encaustic technique, pigment is suspended in wax that is heated and used as paint, but which dries quickly once it is applied to the canvas. The gesture of the artist’s hand and the strokes and drips of the brushwork are thus readily apparent. Here the technique emphasizes the artist’s working process, but it also seems like an ironic commentary on the gestural abstract painting that was common in New York when Jasper Johns created this piece. Johns also applied a piece of extra canvas to the work, folding it into the surface to create a three-part composition. The title suggests that the painting really only has meaning in the mind of the spectator, who “reconstructs” the work according to the basic vocabulary of marks and materials that the artist presents.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Inscribed on back of canvas: Reconstruction/ J. Johns '59

Citations

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 255 archive.org

Bernstein, Roberta, Heidi Colsman-Freyberger, Caitlin Sweeney and Betsy Stepina Zinn. Jasper Johns: Catalogue Raisonné of Painting and Sculpture. NY: The Wildenstein Plattner Institute, 2017. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 156-157, cat. # P78

Exhibition history

CMA 1974: "Year in Review 1973" Bulletin LXI (February 1974), p. 77, cat. no. 148, repr. p. 56.

Buffalo, NY. Albright Knox Art Gallery, Heritage and Horizons: American Paintings 1776-1976, March 6-April 11, 1976, cat. no. 59 (also to Detroit Institute of Arts, May 5-June 13, 1976; Toledo Museum of Art, July 4-August 15, 1976; and The Cleveland Museum of Art, September 8-Octiber 10, 1976).

Year in Review: 1973. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 30-March 17, 1974).

Heritage and Horizon: American Painting 1776 - 1976. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (organizer) (March 7-April 11, 1976); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (May 2-June 13, 1976); The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (July 4-August 15, 1976); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (September 8-October 10, 1976).

Abstract Expressionism in the United States. Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City (October 10, 1996-January 12, 1997).

Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955-1965. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (January 28-April 29, 2007).

Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (organizer) (September 29, 2021-February 13, 2022) https://www.philamuseum.org/calendar/exhibition/jasper-johns-mindmirror.

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Reconstruction|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1973.28|author=Jasper Johns|year=1959|access-date=01 June 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Reconstruction

Reconstruction

Jasper Johns

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