Jasper Johns, Flag, 1957
Gouache or tempera on paper
Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
The Drawings of Jasper Johns
A Catalogue Raisonné in Progress
The Menil Foundation, under the auspices of the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center, is currently preparing the catalogue raisonné of the drawings of Jasper Johns. In that regard, we are seeking information about drawings in public and private collections for this multivolume catalogue raisonné. Johns’s drawings catalogue raisonné will be published in conjunction and cooperation with the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's paintings and sculptures, which is currently being undertaken by the Wildenstein Institute.
We anticipate that as many as 700 drawings by Jasper Johns, dating from the 1950s to the present, will be studied, organized chronologically, and reproduced in color—many for the first time. We intend to augment each entry with a complete physical description, inscriptions, provenance, exhibition, and publication history. The publication will also include a comprehensive list of exhibitions and bibliography, which will prove the most accurate and authoritative data to date. It will be the first definitive documentary record of Johns’s drawings oeuvre and an invaluable resource for scholars, historians, museums, galleries, auction houses -- and to others interested in the artist’s work.
More about the Project:
Plans to publish the Catalogue Raisonné of the Drawings of Jasper Johns were made under the direction of the Board of Trustees of the Menil Collection and Menil Director Josef Helfenstein. The catalogue is being prepared by agreement with the artist, with lead funding provided by Louisa S. Sarofim, Chairman of the Menil Board. The Catalogue Raisonné of the Drawings of Jasper Johns will be realized in collaboration with the Wildenstein Institute, which is publishing the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of Jasper Johns’s Paintings and Sculptures. While the Menil and the Wildenstein Institute will publish their respective catalogues separately, Guy Wildenstein, President of the Wildenstein Institute, and Mr. Helfenstein, of the Menil Collection, have arranged that the two institutions collaborate in sharing research data and ensuring uniform standards of scholarship and design among the various volumes.
About the Authors:
Bernice Rose, Chief Curator of the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center, guides the project as Chief Editor. She will maintain an overall vision of all aspects of this undertaking. Before joining the Menil, Ms. Rose was Director of Special Exhibitions at New York’s PaceWildenstein Gallery (1993–2007) and Senior Curator of Drawings at The Museum of Modern Art (1976–1993). She has written extensively on modern and contemporary drawings and organized numerous exhibitions, including “Drawing Now” for the Museum of Modern Art (1975), and, for the Menil, “How Artists Draw: Toward the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center” (2008), with selections from the museum and other Houston collections. Forthcoming exhibitions organized for the Menil Collection include: “Tony Smith: Drawings” (2011) and “Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective” (2012).
Dr. Roberta Bernstein is the author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Johns’s paintings and sculptures, to be published by the Wildenstein Institute, and Editor in Chief of the three Johns catalogue raisonné projects (paintings, sculptures, and drawings). Her book, Jasper Johns’s Paintings and Sculptures, 1954–74: The Changing Focus of the Eye, is regarded as the most comprehensive study of the first twenty years of the artist’s career. Dr. Bernstein will collaborate in sharing research data and ensuring uniform standards of scholarship and design among the various volumes.
Kate Ganz is the catalogue’s Senior Editor. As an independent scholar and art historian, she has the primary responsibility for physical examination and description of the individual drawings. She has worked extensively with drawings from the fifteenth through the early twenty-first century, and was a principal organizer of “The Drawings of Annibale Carracci” in 1999 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. She also contributed one of the major essays to the catalogue. Ms. Ganz, who up until early in 2008 had a gallery in New York specializing in drawings of all periods, closed her business two years ago in order to concentrate on scholarly research and writing.
Dr. Eileen Costello, in her role as Project Director, will manage the catalogue’s preparation and production in addition to conducting much of the primary exhibition, literature, provenance, and image research.