Face with Watch
A masterful blend of Johns' iconic visual language, this color etching and aquatint presents a fragmented face intertwined with the image of a timepiece, inviting meditation on the passage of time and perception. Created on Arches Tout En Cas paper, the work showcases Johns' technical virtuosity in printmaking, layering rich tones and textures through the etching and aquatint process. The composition reflects the artist's enduring fascination with familiar objects and symbols, transforming everyday imagery into complex, thought-provoking visual puzzles.
- Medium
- Etching and aquatint in colors, on Arches Tout En Cas paper, with full margins,
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Evening & Day Editions
October 28, 2014
Collectors of Jasper Johns
Artists in conversation
Robert Rauschenberg
American · b. 1925
Rauschenberg similarly combined fragmented imagery and everyday objects within Neo-Dada printmaking traditions, layering symbolic and figurative elements with rich tonal complexity in ways that parallel Johns' fusion of a face and a timepiece.
Jim Dine
American · b. 1935
Dine is renowned for his technically virtuosic etchings and aquatints that interweave familiar objects with figurative imagery and muted tones, closely echoing Johns' approach of transforming recognizable symbols into meditative visual experiences.
Francesco Clemente
Italian · b. 1952
Clemente creates fragmented portrait works rich in symbolic imagery and layered tones through printmaking, sharing with this piece an introspective mood and a fascination with perception and the dissolution of the recognizable face into surrounding symbolic elements.
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