Figure 5 [trial proof 3]
1976
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
etching in black on wove paper [trial proof]
Dimensions
plate: 23.5 × 17.78 cm (9 1/4 × 7 in.) sheet: 32.54 × 25.08 cm (12 13/16 × 9 7/8 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Patrons' Permanent Fund and Special Friends of the National Gallery of Art
Accession Number
2008.136.248
Art Historical Context
Step into the meticulous world of Jasper Johns with *Figure 5 [trial 3]*, a 1976 etching that captures the artist's enduring fascination with numerals as both form and symbol. Johns, a towering figure in post-war American art, blurred the lines between painting, sculpture, and printmaking, influencing Pop Art and beyond. By the mid-1970s, he had evolved from his iconic flags and targets to intricate explorations of numbers and letters, treating them as enigmatic objects that challenge perception. This intimate print—measuring just 23.5 × 17.78 cm on the plate—renders the digit "5" in stark bla...
About the Artist
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker whose revolutionary work fundamentally transformed the trajectory of postwar American art. Emerging in the 1950s when Abstract Expressionism dominated the New York art world, Johns introduced a radically different approach by painting familiar, everyday symbols—flags, targets, numbers, and maps—that he des...