?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 50,000 - $ 80,000
JASPER JOHNS False Start II.
Color lithograph on A. Millbourn & Co. British handmade paper, 1962. 460x350 mm; 18x13 3/4 inches, full margins. One of 6 artist's proofs, aside from the edition of 30. Signed, dated and inscribed "artist's proof" in pencil, lower margin. Printed and published by ULAE, West Islip with the blind stamp lower left. A superb impression of this very scarce lithograph with strong colors.
We have found only 13 other impressions at auction in the past 30 years.
Johns (born 1930) began to work with Tatyana Grosman (1904-1982), the founder of ULAE, in 1960, after the two met at Larry River's home in East Hampton. The working relationship between Grosman and Johns would endure for 22 years of innovative printmaking. In 1962, Johns began to explore colored inks in his lithographic works. False Start I, the 1962 lithograph preceding the present lot, used eleven stones, some with more than one color ink. These stones were preserved to use for False Start II. Johns collaborated with the venerable master printer Robert Blackburn (1920-2003) at ULAE to produce and print both False Start I and False Start II. Field 11.
