Flags

Here Johns revisits a composition and creates something almost entirely new from it. Flags represents an experiment in perception: staring at the small circle in the center of the top image produces an afterimage of red, white, and blue over the bottom gray image. Then, working with leftover, rejected prints from the edition of Flags, Johns created Flags II, a highly expressive variation on the analytical approach of the initial print.

Credit: Gift of the Celeste and Armand Bartos Foundation