292 Jasper Johns

One night I dreamed I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it. And I did. I worked on that painting a long time. It’s a very rotten painting—physically rotten—because I began it in house enamel paint, which you paint furniture with, and it wouldn’t dry quickly enough. Then I had in my head this idea of something I had read or heard about: wax encaustic.

—Jasper Johns

Salman Khan and Steven Zucker provide a description, historical perspective, and analysis of Jasper Johns’s Flag.

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954–55 (dated on reverse 1954), encaustic, oil, and collage on fabric mounted on plywood, three panels, 42-1/4 x 60-5/8 inches (107.3 x 153.8 cm), (The Museum of Modern Art).