little guys – greg.org

Hilton Als on Johns’s Little Guys

jasper johns, perilous night, 1990, is a vertically oriented revisiting of the right half of a pair of 1982 drawings of the same name. this one is neater, but still watery. two pages of the score of john cage's perilous night and a disembodied hand and arm print (facing down) sit in a black and grey background segmented by tracery that hints at another drawing, maybe with a sword, probably a detail from the isenheim altarpiece. but the pale green band at the bottom with three stick figures holding paint brushes renders the grey field as the sky instead. via matthew marks gallery, which showed it in 2024 — Jasper Johns, *Perilous Night*, 1990, Watercolor and ink on paper, 30½ × 23¼ in., on view at Matthew Marks in 2024

I really wished I’d seen the show of Jasper Johns drawings at Matthew Marks when I went deep on the little stick figures motif. Perilous Night, a 1990 watercolor, was the earliest of several works in the show in which the little guys appeared.

And I REALLY wish I’d gotten the catalogue immediately, because I just picked it up this afternoon, and Hilton Als had this to say about the stick figures in Perilous Night:

The right side of this watercolor and ink on paper is a replica of a score by John Cage, a close friend of Johns for many years. Cage wrote “Perilous Night” in 1943 and 1944. A composition for a prepared piano, it’s an angry piece whose strong rhythms speak to us emotionally—he was going through a difficult time with his then wife, the surrealist artist Xenia Cage—even as we understand that Cage is asking questions about what the piano can and cannot do. Who’s to say? In Johns’s piece, the sheet music floats against an abstract field made up of vertical shapes that reach up, up, up toward the top of the page. On the bottom of the work, a strip of green field. Three little stick figures stand on that green, gesticulating. Who are they? What are they? Fallen notes from Cage’s score?(Johns doesn’t render the notes in Cage’s score; all we see are traces of notes.) Or are those tiny figures from Johns’s and Cage’s past? Johns’s Perilous Night is an exercise, too, in depth—an experiment that challenges Johns’s famous flatness. One image tells us about another: the sheet music leads us to the abstraction, and the abstraction leads us to that little strip of green. It’s a work that’s giddy with possibility, a kind of “what if” piece. What if I put a little green here? And figures there? What happens to the work? To the eye? To the eye of the ideas?

Universe And Little Guy

an untitled 2021 jasper johns work on paper is largely black with a vector map of slice of the universe, a contruction of red and blue dots representing, i think, galaxies or galaxy clusters along threads reaching across space, with a concentration in the center that bears an unusual resemblance to a stick figure spiderman, which may feel more prominent because the trompe l'oeil sheet of paper taped to the center right of the composition is of a lone stick figure with a raised brush, a familiar johns motif, here seemingly drawin in graphite. via matthew marks gallery — Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2021, acrylic and graphite over etching on paper, 16⅞ × 21⅛ in., via Matthew Marks

I’d like to go back to contemplating one little guy confronting the slice of the universe that looks, now that you mention it, a lot like a stick figure, please.

[tbf I was actually looking back through these recent shows from after the CR cutoff, to find out how wrong I might be about Johns only making one alphabet painting by looking for when the sign language alphabet motif came in, and did it happen in any paintings, and I don’t think so, even though I remember thinking there sure was a lot of sign language alphabet in one of those Marks shows, but maybe it’s all in prints and works on paper? And then yes, there is sometimes a very prominent stencil of the entire alphabet behind that skeleton getting worked on by the little guys, but not in the paintings, or at least not in the ones he showed. But after 60 years, Johns should feel free to revisit a motif if he wanted, and making it the stencil tool, not the letters themselves, does help rein in the chaos a bit.]

Jasper Johns Little Guys For Obama

a jasper johns etching has two horizontal rows of squarish images, like a comic strip, in gradations of grey. most of the panels have an element that looks like an eye or a sun, in space or in a larger circle. the upper right panel has the three stick figures johns began using as an occasional motif in the 1980s, but especially after 2000. — Jasper Johns, *Untitled (from the Artists for Obama portfolio)*, 2008, etching and aquatint, 8 x 20 cm image, 21 x 30 cm sheet, ed. 13/150, selling as a loosie on 3 Sept 2025 at LA Modern [kinda wild that such a low edition number was broken up for parts]

Whoops, missed another one. I might have to check all the benefit print portfolios Johns contributed to in the last 30 years, to see if there are any more little guys out there.

Meanwhile, these little guys are in a little print—just 8 x 20 cm, smaller, even than the Ellsworth Kelly print in the same Artists for Obama portfolio.

a detail of jasper johns's 2008 print for obama comprises the upper right panel where three barely drawn stick figures are in motion against a gradient sky sprinkled with stars. the stars and guys are drawn in line,and the sky is brushed in around them all. feels kind of quick, looks kind of provisional — Jasper Johns, detail, *Untitled (from the Artists for Obama portfolio)*, this little scene is like 5 x 5 cm

And they’re pretty lyrically drawn, too. No stamps here. I assume those are pens in their hands, encouraging people to register to vote.

3 Sept 2025, Lot 310, Jasper Johns, Untitled, est. $2-3,000 [lamodern]
Gemini GEL got 14 Artists for Obama in 2008, tho technically they were Artists for the DNC [moma]
Previously, related: Jasper Johns Little Guys for Leo

Jasper Johns: Take An Object, Add Some Little Guys To It

a close up film frame grab of jasper johns touching up the corners of a copper intaglio plate sitting on a white worktable at ulae. the horizontal rectangular plate features three stick figures holding brushes, a motif johns first used 7 years earlier. via hans namuth and judith weschler's 1990 film, jasper johns: take an object — Johns adding these little figures in Namuth & Weschler’s 1990 film, Jasper Johns: Take An Object

“I thought to add these little figures, which appear in a different drawing of mine, an old drawing. They’re in the bottom of Perilous Night, for John Cage.”

Oh hey, look, it’s Jasper Johns in 1989 discussing the addition of his little stick figures to another work for what sounds like the first time since he used them in 1982.

jasper johns 1990 print, the seasons, is a jumble of elements from his painting series of the same name, rearranged into an interlocked cross form, with three tiny stick figures appended to the bottom. — And little guys: Jasper Johns, *The Seasons (ULAE 0249)*, 1990, intaglio, 50 1/4 x 44 1/2 in., ed. 50

Johns is talking to filmmaker Judith Weschler, who produced Jasper Johns: Take An Object with photographer Hans Namuth in 1990. The short film is bracketed by two extended scenes of Johns at work: in 1972, painting in his own studio, and in 1989, printmaking at ULAE.

Little Guys Show Trials

In 2010 the National Gallery of Art acquired hundreds and hundreds of trial proofs from Jasper Johns. They document, if not easily reveal, the intricate process of making Johns’ prints, a process Johns has brought into the center of his practice from almost the beginning.

Searching through proofs on the NGA’s website is a bit of a slog, but when this sketch for Leo Castelli’s Little Guys print turned up, I thought I’d better go through the stacks.

a trial proof by jasper johns for a 1990 print titled the seasons includes three plates: the top two are tiled together into a wonky boomerang shape and contain the head and part of the arms of a stick figure johns quotes from picasso; the bottom landscape rectangle contains three stick figures, a motif he first used in 1982, in a little group, each holding a brush or two. there is an x on what seems to be the ground of the space they inhabit. this tria print is in the colleciton of the national gallery of art. — Jasper Johns, The Seasons (Trial Proof), 1990, etching & aquatint, three plates on a 29 3/8 x 21 1/4 in sheet, collection National Gallery of Art

And so I found this trial proof for The Seasons, a 1990 ULAE print that is one of the earliest print appearances of the trio of stick figures. And it looks like they travel by themselves. The proof is actually three separate plates from what would be a much larger composition. Coincidentally or not, the other plates contain part of the other stick figure Johns uses, from the UNESCO Picasso.

the seasons, 1990, by jasper johns, is a 50 inch tall print published by ulae with a jumble of motifs relating to the series of paintings of the same name: angled ladders and shaded areas form an indistinct cruciform arrangement, with a figure of some kind in each arm: a shadow of the artist, a shadow filled with dots, a silhouette of a small child standing like the aliens in close encounters, if you ask me, and a stick figure from picasso. other motifs johns likes to use are sprinkled around, and below them all are the three little stick figures that are the most interesting to me. ymmv obv — Jasper Johns, *The Seasons (ULAE 0249)*, 1990, intaglio, 50 1/4 x 44 1/2 in., ed. 50, via ULAE

Whether all prints, or all Johns’ prints, are made this way, I have no idea. But now that you mention it, this print in particular feels very much like that: composed by assembling and setting multiple, prepared plates together like an old timey newspaper publisher. That certainly takes away much of the stress of working images into a 50-inch plate without error or change, I guess.

In any case, the plate with the Little Guys is 4 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches, and notably includes another element, an X marking the spot over to the left, and a line defining their ground.

The Picasso stick figure is embedded in the center of the composition, and all the other figures—the child silhouette, the shadows and inverted shadows from the Seasons paintings read as Johns himself, the Duchamp profile, even the snowman—are integrated as well. But these three stick figures at the bottom seem to still be set apart and doing their own thing, in their own space, even with their own ground to stand on—while still a part of the entire image.

Jasper Johns, The Seasons (trial proof), 1990 [nga.gov]
Previously: Jasper Johns’ Little Guys: Origins

Jasper Johns Little Guys for Leo

in jasper johns 1997 etching for leo castelli's 90th birthday, three stick figures holding brushes in a configuration johns has used since at least 1982 are at the bottom edge of the plate/frame, while a brushy gradient dark blue sky rises above them. at the top edge in the heavens, are the nine stars which make up the constellation leo, printed in yellow, and mostly connected by faint lines. this example is from moma — Jasper Johns, *Leo* from *The Leo Castelli 90th Birthday Portfolio*, 1997/98, etching with aquatint, 45×30 cm plate on 37 x 27 in. sheet, ed. 90+17AP+?, this one from MoMA

While looking something else up at the Philadelphia Museum, I realized I’d missed a major appearance of the three stick figures I call Jasper Johns’ little guys: they make their astronomical—or astrological—debut in a print created in 1997 for Leo Castelli’s 90th birthday.

It was published by Jean-Christophe Castelli in a portfolio, and so wasn’t printed by Johns’s two major print foundries, Gemini GEL and ULAE, so I missed it in my survey. But it does really capture the way Johns expanded the ways he put them to work in his pictures. Beyond their function in his composition and scale, they also start to imply their own narrative, whether in a picture or as its audience.

in a detail from a 1997 sketch page by jasper johns, two square panels are drawn in pencil, each with three tiny stick figures along the bottom edge, looking at the big dipper in one, and a spiral galaxy in the other, an example of johns experimenting with compositions using the stick figures. from the johns drawings catalogue raisonne D587 — Detail from *Untitled (D587)* showing those little guys doing something new, 1997, graphite, 15 3/4 x 20 1/4 in., via JJ Drawings CR

The idea of these stick figures under a night sky seems to first appear in 1997, and it would reappear often as Johns incorporated more astronomical imagery into his work. It really does give these little guys a primordial vibe, like they were here before us all.

Of course, while the sketch above has them looking at the Big Dipper or a spiral galaxy, in Leo from the Leo…, the little guys are looking at the constellation Leo. [Or most of it; the line that forms the lion’s back is missing.] Which maybe did not matter so much; Leo Castelli, born September 4th, was a Virgo.

[next day update: on bluesky Peter Huestis points to Sketch for Leo, a 1997 work on mylar, in the National Gallery. This is not in the drawings CR, I believe, but it’s perfect. It’s described as “charcoal transfer,” which I do not understand. It is not in reverse, so it is at least one step removed from the creation of the printing plates.]

a sketch on mylar by jasper johns titled, sketch for leo 1997, has his three stick figures holding brushes in dark charcoal near the bottom edge, some reddish smudges around them, a faint horizon line above their teeny little heads, and the constellation leo picked out in faint circles and light red lines. this became the etching johns made for leo castelli's 90th birthday portfolio. it is in the collection of the national gallery of art, but not, i believe, in the artist's drawings cr, which i am certain i scoured for stick figures — Jasper Johns, “Sketch for Leo,” 1997, charcoal transfer, graphite, and red pencil on mylar, in the collection of the National Gallery from whence it cannot be downloaded.

Previously: Jasper Johns’ Little Guys
Jasper Johns’ Little Guys: Origins

Jasper Johns’ Little Guys: Origins

I have reviewed the chronology of Jasper Johns’ stick figures, and it is long, and the literature, and it is sparse. The most extensive discussion I’ve found of them is from July 2020, when art historian Isabelle Loring Wallace explored figures and faces in Johns’ prints at the Walker Art Center. [The Walker has a complete run of Johns’ print works, which the artist has been topping up with gifts since 1987.]

Pablo Picasso, *The Fall of Icarus*, 1958, acrylic on 40 wood panels, 910 x 1060 cm, image: UNESCO/J.-C. Bernath via Walker Art Center

Loring calls them both “A motif of unknown origin” and “a crudely rendered Picasso-inspired trio,” seeing a similarity to the figure in Picasso’s 1958 UNESCO mural, The Fall of Icarus. I don’t see it, but sure. Except while other Picasso references appear in Johns’ work sooner, this so-called Icarus doesn’t turn up in Johns’ work until 1992, a full decade after the stick figure trio.

Dazzle Painting Little Guys

One of the things they never tell you about the WWI dazzle ship painting thing is that it made it hard to tell how big a painting of a dazzle ship is.

I had to dig around in three years worth of National Gallery of Canada Instagram to find an installation image of Edward Wadsworth’s 3-meter tall Dazzleships in Drydock at Liverpool (1919). So thank you, @arunprasaad, for your service.

Edward Wadsworth, *Dazzleships in Dry Dock at Liverpool*, 1919, 305 x 245 cm, National Gallery of Canada

I was wondering why Wadsworth painted this—I was about to say “so big,” but if you’d spent the war painting 2,000 actual ships, 10 feet would seem like a major downsizing. Oh hey, speaking of scale, he put Little Guys with brushes in there.

But I read the 2015 Liverpool Biennial Journal about Dazzle and its history, I now understand that it was an awarded commission to commemorate the Canadian involvement in the war. And that the Memorial Committee basically said No Modernists, No Cubists. So Wadsworth, determined to revive the pre-war manifesto of the Vorticists, made a naturalistic painting of an abstract painting project.

Meanwhile, there was actually a time when the National Gallery emphasized the scale of their pictures (though tbh, that was partly to use square footage to justify the price they paid for their Barnett Newman.)

the main image circulating in 2013 of Barnett Newman’s *Voice of Fire*, 1967, 18×8 ft, as installed at the National Gallery of Canada

Even a couple of years after Wadsworth, Gerald Murphy had no trouble in communicating the scale of his 18 x 12 foot lost masterpiece, Boatdeck (1924):

The scale of which, it must be said, is rather hard to gauge from a picture of the picture alone. I once missed an eBay auction for an old photo of Boatdeck by a day. I’ve been crushed ever since.

Gerald Murphy, *Boatdeck*, 1924, photo: Gerald & Sara Murphy Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale

Jasper Johns Little Guys

I know I’m never going to get a tattoo, but that doesn’t stop me from making a shortlist of tattoos I’d get. And the top Jasper Johns entry on the list are these little guys, with their little rakes, or brooms, or brushes. They’ve been turning up in Johns’s work for decades. They were there in his last drawings show at Matthew Marks, and they’re there again now.

They’re being towered over by an inky armprint, a tracing of Grünewald’s fallen soldier, and torn sheets of John Cage’s pivotal score in a dark and ominous sky, but they’re not daunted. They’re just going about their work, setting the scale, completing the composition. [This watercolor from 1990 predates the first appearance of the little guys in a painting by two+ years, btw. Is this Little Guys: Origins?]

Untitled, 2019, Graphite on paper, six sheets, each: 8¼ × 6 in. via Matthew Marks

Here they are in 2019, in these little drawings, just as busy as ever, working on the skulls. The 1990 guys look drawn by hand, but these guys, and the skull, are clearly reproduced with some mechanical means. I haven’t seen the show yet to figure it out, but nothing could be more Johnsian. [Or haven’t I? I remembered the related prints, but forgot that these little drawings were included in his 2021 show.]

On one level they’re pure exercises in composition. They’re literally just lines. But I can’t not also think of them as little scenes; the grouping practically demands a narrative of some kind. Can you imagine Johns just making up little situations and stories for his little guys? It’s been decades now. Do they have names? Do they have lore?

Even as the autobiographical elements of Johns’s project move in and out of focus over the years, it still feels a little weird or retrograde to wonder such things. But it also feels OK to assume that motifs and figures and strategies recur for a reason; Johns is not some automaton, throwing the same five ingredients into the pot every day.

Until I hear different, then, I’m going to assume they’re these little guys, happily working and living inside Johns’s capital I:

Previously, related [and I love that they used a knee drawing on the cover of the exhibition catalogue, btw]: Taking A Knee; also Blackened Angel; also Little Johns