One of the founders of Pop art (as well as Minimalism) was the artist from Allendale, South Carolina, the legend, Jasper Johns. All his life he wanted to be an artist. He had no idea what it was to be an artist, but he liked the idea of getting out and doing something different from the environment he was in. “I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea.” After high school he went into the Army (stationed in Japan), studied for a short time at the University of South Carolina before venturing off to New York in 1952. This is where he and Robert Rauchenburg began to lay the foundation for Pop Art. After a visit to see Marcel Duchamp’s “readymades” in Philadelphia, he was inspired to create everyday images. "I tend to like things that already exist." His primary subjects became flags, targets, map, numbers, and the alphabet. One of my favorites of these works is his Flags. This work is unique becaise it uses the physical stress of colors that force the viewer to see what the artist wants. The green, orange and black stress the eye, so if you stare at the white dot of the top flag, then look at the black dot of the bottow one, you'll see red, white, and blue even though ther is no color there. "There may or may not be an idea, and the meaning may just be that the painting exists." Good art is not about money, however, students are often shocked with the price of great art by great artists. In 2005, a small Flag painting/collage by Johns sold for $4.5 million. A drawing, 0 through 9, broke records for an artwork on paper, with a $10.9 million price-tag.

Flags