Jasper Johns to Get Hefty New Catalogue Raisonné

It's an impressive five volumes.

The Jasper Johns catalogue raisonné. Courtesy of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute.

Jasper Johns fans take note: a new catalogue raisonné, billed as “the most comprehensive resource on the artist’s work to date” will be published by the brand-new Wildenstein Plattner Institute (WPI) in April 2017. The artist has been closely involved in the project, which is authored by leading Johns scholar Roberta Bernstein.

“Jasper Johns is among the world’s most influential living artists, who has been a pioneer in contemporary art for over six decades,” said WPI executive director Elizabeth Gorayeb in a statement, touting the “impressive level of scholarship” behind the catalogue. Bernstein was assisted by senior researcher Heidi Colsman-Freyberger, editor Betsy Stepina Zinn, and senior research associate Caitlin Sweeney, of WPI.

The Johns catalogue raisonné is the first publication from WPI’s publishing imprint. Billionaire dealer Guy Wildenstein co-founded the new foundation to promote art historical scholarship.

It documents Johns work in painting and sculpture from 1954 to 2014, and contains five volumes, beginning with an illustrated monograph surveying the artist’s 60-year career. The second and third volumes feature his 355 paintings, while the fourth focuses on his 86 sculptures. There are full-page color photographs of each work, some of which have never been publicly exhibited.

a. Jasper Johns, Target, (1961). Encaustic and collage on canvas, 66 x 66 inches. Stefan T. Edlis Collection. Art © Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Via Acquavella Gallery. Originally sold for $125,000

Jasper Johns, Target (1961). Courtesy of the Stefan T. Edlis Collection. Art © Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY, via Acquavella Gallery.

Completing the project is a biographical chronology of the artist’s life, including information about no longer-extant works and a comprehensive exhibition history. The cloth-bound box set will be printed by Trifolio in Verona, Italy, and distributed by Yale University Press.

“My interests as a scholar of Johns’s art remain focused on describing its progression—how it links to the past and moves into uncharted artistic territory,“ said Bernstein. “A catalogue raisonné is the perfect vehicle to present how an artist’s body of work unfolds over time.”


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