Leo Castelli Gallery is pleased to announce Jasper Johns Drawing Over, an exhibition of thirty drawings executed from the early 1960s to the present. The show presents works assembled from public and private collections, as well as from the artist’s studio, some of which have never been exhibited. A catalogue with an essay by Pepe Karmel has been published for the occasion.

The drawings in the exhibition are realized in a variety of media – acrylic, watercolor, ink, gouache, pastel, etc. – but they share a common quality: they are executed over prints. In this body of work, an image previously created by the artist has been reworked and transformed into something else. Land’s End, Johns’ monochromatic intaglio from 1979, became a vibrant pastel at the artist’s hand, and a new work arose: Land’s End, 1979/1989. It is of great interest that Johns’ drawings executed over prints from the same edition vary greatly in appearance, despite sharing the same composition, as the original image has been modified to a quite large extent. In this exhibition, a group of six Flag drawings, 1972/1994, and eight Untitled works, 1987/2008, exemplify this process.

Using his own language and iconography and working in his particular manner of execution, Johns has effectively developed a way to create works on paper which are unique to his artistic vision. For additional information please contact Aniko Berman: aniko@castelligallery.com