Two Costumes [trial proof]
2000
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color etching and aquatint on wove paper [trial proof]
Dimensions
plate: 55.25 x 13.02 cm (21 3/4 x 5 1/8 in.) sheet: 76.84 x 31.75 cm (30 1/4 x 12 1/2 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
2010.116.653
Art Historical Context
Jasper Johns, a pivotal figure in post-war American art associated with Neo-Dada and Pop Art, created *Two Costumes [trial]* in 2000. Renowned for his innovative depictions of everyday symbols like flags and targets, Johns often blurred the lines between painting and printmaking, exploring perception and repetition. This late-career work reflects his enduring fascination with form and ambiguity, rendered as a color etching and aquatint—a sophisticated intaglio technique where acid bites into a metal plate to create intricate lines (etching) and tonal gradations (aquatint), yielding rich, layer...
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...