Fool's House
1972
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color lithograph on Angoumois à la Main handmade paper
Dimensions
sheet: 110.81 × 74.3 cm (43 5/8 × 29 1/4 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Gemini G.E.L. and the Artist
Accession Number
1981.5.113
Art Historical Context
Jasper Johns's *Fool's House* (1972) is a striking color lithograph that exemplifies the artist's innovative printmaking during a pivotal era in postwar American art. Created on luxurious Angoumois à la Main handmade paper, measuring 110.81 × 74.3 cm, this work captures Johns's signature blend of precision and ambiguity, drawing from his roots in Neo-Dada and Pop Art. By the early 1970s, Johns had moved beyond his iconic flags and targets, exploring layered motifs that blur the line between representation and abstraction—here evoking a sense of domestic folly through the enigmatic title. Lith...
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...