Flags II

Jasper Johns first incorporated the image of the U.S. flag into his work in 1954, using layers of wax-based encaustic, paint, and newspaper to embed the country’s signature stars and stripes into the time and space of current events. The artist returned to this motif repeatedly throughout the following decades. In this series of prints that doubles, rotates, and obscures the flag in a reduced and brooding palette, Johns creates a conflicted icon of Americanism and questions the symbolism of a united national body.