Jasper Johns Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

A photograph of Howard Kaplan on a plane.
Howard Kaplan
Writer
February 17, 2011

Jasper Johns, one of our favorite artists renowned for his paintings and printmaking, received the Medal of Freedom Tuesday night from President Obama. At eighty years old, Johns is perhaps best known for his images of targets and the American flag. Johns referred to these recognizable objects that became the source and inspiration for his work as "things the mind already knows." He was born in Augusta, Georgia, in a place "with no artists and little art." From that world he created his own, and became a force in the post World War II art world in this country, straddling both abstract expressionism and pop art.

 

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