Jasper Johns is undoubtedly one of the leading exponents of American Pop Art. With his representations of letters, numbers, targets and flags in a simple, clear image language he set new benchmarks and lay the foundation not only for Pop Art but also for American Minimalism. Jasper Jones was born in Augusta, Georgia, in 1930 and grew up in South Carolina. At the age of 22 Johns moved away from the South to settle in New York, thus pursueing his childhood dream of becoming an artist. In New York, Johns met numerous artists including Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Merce Cunningham, with whom he retained close intellectual ties over the following years. In 1954/55 he created his seminal painting 'Flag', a piece of art consisting of collaged newspaper cuttings painted over in multiple layers. Johns subsequently abandoned masonry paint for wax-based paints that dried far more quickly. This type of paint enabled him to layer his brush strokes in rapid sequences, without destroying the autonomy of each layer. This paint became the hallmark of his works. The year 1958 marked Johns' breakthrough as an artist. He had his first solo exhibition at the newly opened Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. His work was shown at the Venice Biennale, the 'Museum of Modern Art' bought three of his works and the art scene talked about his ouvre. After his gallery début, Jasper Johns partially began to move away from his style of painting, which had within no time brought him universal acclaim. He began to paint, what was often a non-representational picture field, with agressive, sometimes bunched brush strokes in white, black, grey, the three primary colors and their immediate derivatives. The painting process as such became more important than external signs. In the early 1960s this interest in the process character of painting led Jasper Johns to printmaking. This work matched his delight in experimenting and encouraged him to introduce crucial innovations to silk screening, lithography and etching. During the 1980s Johns' style of painting changed again. Autobiographical material and realistic figuration gained importance. A key motif in Johns' approach to art is the practice of introducing a new style of painting while simultaneously turning back to earlier motifs in his prints, repeating them, mirroring them and working them out in series. Over the past 50 years Johns created a vast and comprehensive oeuvre, which is shown in all important museums and collections of 20th century art. Jasper Johns lives and works in New York.