In 1974 collector Victor Ganz told Jasper Johns that a couple of prints had been damaged by a water leak. Johns said to send them, and he’d see what he could do. He then reworked them with gouache, pencil, and pastel into new, unique drawings. “Victor naturally called Johns to thank him, and when asked what he had been up to, Victor replied, ‘I am pouring water on all the other prints.’”
That story came from modern print dealer Susan Lorence, and it was included in Pepe Karmel’s essay for “Drawing Over,” a 2010 show of Johns’s overdrawn and overpainted prints at Castelli Gallery. [The gallery has a PDF of the catalogue.]
Lorence’s Flag, above, was one of six reworked Flag lithograph proofs included in that show. Karmel explained the process, where, in 1994, Johns painted and drew over a set of proof prints from the upper stone from a 1972 lithograph, Two Flags, in a variety of mediums. Several, including Lorence’s were repainted with a corborundum wash, a material used in intaglio printing, that, like the graphite washes Johns used in the 1960s, had “a granular texture and a gunmetal sheen” that stood apart from the lithograph ink’s matte surface.
The other corborundum wash Flag in the show sold at Christie’s in 2016. I saw another one at Matthew Marks in 2024. Christie’s says Johns reworked seven 1972 Flags, though I don’t know if that’s the Castelli six plus one, or if they mean he did seven corborundum wash ones. They’re all in the CR, though, so you’ll have time to research it before the Contemporary Day Sale on May 21st. I’m just happy for the granular texture and the gunmetal sheen.
21 May 2026, Lot 429: Jasper Johns, Flag, 1972-94, est $1-1.5m [christies]