Figure 6, from the series “Black Numeral Series”

Artist: Jasper Johns, American, born 1930
Publisher: Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), Los Angeles, California, founded 1966
Printer: Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), Los Angeles, California, founded 1966
Date: 1968
Material: Lithograph
printed in: Los Angeles, California, United States, North and Central America
published in: Los Angeles, California, United States, North and Central America
Classification: Prints
Collection: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Current Location: Not on view
Dimensions: image (irregular): 27 1/2 × 21 1/4 in. (69.9 × 54 cm)
sheet: 37 × 30 in. (94 × 76.2 cm)
Credit Line: Friends Endowment Fund
Rights: © Jasper Johns and Gemini G.E.L. / Licensed by ARS, New York, NY. Published by Gemini G.E.L.
Object Number: 34:1976.3

NOTES

Jasper Johns elevated simple numbers to a grand scale, and he did so while frequently returning to them as his primary subject matter. Between the late 1950s and 2003, Johns had made over 150 works focusing on the numerals one to nine, each time with a different result. Black Numeral Series was the first project he completed at Gemini, and they were the largest prints Johns had attempted to date.

Printers expressed astonishment about the complexity of what Johns was able to draw on the lithographic stone: “[the] depth of the stones, built up in washes . . . [it was] alive when you were printing . . . and you’d see something new every time. They were really magical.” According to another printer, “His stones yield the last ounce of blood lithography has to yield.”

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