DJasper Johns, now 93 years old, is one of the most important American artists. It is hardly known that he amassed an extensive collection of drawings over the course of his life. These remarkable works on paper, which have never been seen in Europe, are currently on display at the Kunstmuseum Basel. In a representative selection, the institution shows over a hundred works of museum quality from the 19th and 20th centuries. Johns’ passion for the medium of drawing is based on the traditional view that artistic ideas can be conveyed more directly and spontaneously than in an elaborate painting. He received some works as gifts, others came to him in exchange with colleagues who were friends, and other pictures were specifically purchased by him. As Johns emphasizes, it is not a collection created according to art historical criteria, but rather an expression of his personal, broad artistic interests.
Drawing as the most direct expression of the artistic idea
A visit to the show enables very different perspectives that focus either on the graphic means inherent in the image, the collector himself or art historical references. The first thing that stands out is the wide range of graphic expressions: strictly linear figure paintings and still lifes by Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, a chalk drawing by George Seurat that has no lines at all and only delicate light-dark gradients, a self-portrait by Paul Cézanne made up almost entirely of hatching, musical notations by John Cage, a minimalist paper fold by Sol LeWitt, Cy Twombly’s nervous gestural abbreviation systems, geometries by Frank Stella and a black dripping by Willem de Kooning. This diversity allows the artist and visitors to compare the possibilities of graphic rhetoric.
The hands are always the most difficult thing for artists: Bartolomeo Passarotti’s study of the “Adoration of the Magi”, around 1555
:
Image: Collection of Jasper Johns
The presentation says a lot about Johns himself, as he was friends with several of the artists represented: Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, John Cage, Robert Morris, and Elaine and Willem de Kooning. The close personal relationships can be seen on some of the sheets from the dedications. But works by older artists such as Marcel Duchamp and René Magritte, whom Johns met in New York in 1953 and 1965, are also shown.
Now 93 years old, he looks back on a century-long collection of drawings: Jasper Johns
:
Image: John Lund
Furthermore, the different art historical references that can be found in the sheets are striking. A handprint by Duchamp, presumably created in the 1920s, can be seen, which anticipates the handprints in Johns’ drawings and lithographs from the early 1960s. Historical motifs can also be found directly in some drawings: Paul Gauguin captured Andrea del Verrocchio’s famous Florentine bust of Piero de’ Medici from the 15th century on one sheet. Paul Cézanne, on the other hand, depicted the ancient “Venus de Milo” from the Louvre and, in another drawing, copied the group from Caravaggio’s “Entombment of Christ” in the Vatican.
Jasper Johns also collects Dada: The collage “Untitled (Erfurt-Erfur)” by Kurt Schwitters, 1924-26
:
Image: Collection of Jasper Johns
The opportunity for contemplation before drawings is beneficial
The wealth of graphical means used, the biographical references and the references make this show an experience that one can devote oneself to at one’s leisure. Because there is a crowd of people two floors up in the large exhibition of the French Fauvists with their brightly colored oil paintings that is running at the same time.
Jasper Johns. The artist as collector. From Cézanne to de Kooning. Kunstmuseum Basel, until February 4th. The catalog costs 48 francs.
#Painters #collectors #Jasper #Johns #Kunstmuseum #Basel