Born in May of 1930 in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns is an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor who is associated with Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and the Neo-Dada movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for his series of flags, targets, maps, letters and numbers. In 1954, after burning all 
his previous artwork, Johns started introducing numbers and text into his abstract paintings. Because he incorporated well-known motifs into his art, the work is defined as both abstraction for his use of stripes and circles, and representational for his use of targets and flags.
Jasper Johns spent his early years in South Carolina, an area he considered an artistic wasteland. After making the decision to become an artist, he studied for three semesters at the University of South Carolina; he later moved to New York City where he studied briefly at the Parsons School of Design in 1949. With the advent of the Korean War, Johns was stationed in Sendai, Japan, for a two year period from 1952 to 1953.
After his return to New York, Johns met artist Robert Rauschenberg in 1954 and soon began an intense, emotional relationship and artistic collaboration. Rauschenberg was an intense, spontaneous, energetic personality; while Johns was a more shy, intellectual personality with a slow deliberate style. This contrast led to private heated moments but also great creative accomplishments. 
In the 1950s, during the six years they were together, Johns and Rauschenberg produced many works which today are considered iconic masterpieces, such as Johns’ two series, “Flags” and “Targets”, and Rauschenberg’s “Combines” series.
In 1959, art dealer Leo Castelli met with Rauschenberg to discuss his upcoming gallery exhibition. This meeting led to Castelli’s discovery of Jasper Johns’ downstairs apartment with its trove of paintings from the “Flags” and “Targets” series. Castelli signed Johns immediately. In the years that followed, while Rauschenberg’s career waned and, for a time, faltered, Jasper Johns’ career thrived. His first solo exhibition in 1958, based on his series of American flags, sold out with four of the works being purchased by the Museum of Modern Art. By the beginning of the 1960s, Johns’ and Rauschenberg’s aesthetic, romantic, and professional conflicts led to the break in their relationship and a concentration on their individual careers.
Johns was introduced to lithography in 1960 through an invitation by Russian-American printmaker Tatyana Grosman to produce prints at her publishing company, Universal Limited Art Editions. Hesitant to work with what at that time was considered an antiquated medium, he was encouraged to proceed by friend 
and artist Larry Rivers. Since 1960, Jasper Johns has worked on developing various printmaking techniques to investigate and develop his existing compositions.
Johns’ first completed print was the 1960 “Target”; however, having been exploring numeric figures since 1955, his inaugural attempt at a printed series was based on the symmetrical and easily configured number zero. This initial lithograph series, entitled “0 Through 9”, consisted of the numbers 0 to 9 superimposed over each other to create numerous compositions. Although elements of all the numbers are visible, the individual numbers, removed from their original context, become difficult to distinguish.
This reduction of the combined numbers to a numeric motif places the attention of the viewer on the work’s pictorial composition and technique. It is the numeric motif to which Johns has returned most often, exploring it in paintings, drawings, print, and sculpture. He has produced more variations on it than any other subject matter.
Often regarded as one of the fathers of conceptual art, Jasper Johns received in 1960 the Vincent van Volkmer Prize, a highly endowed biennial art prize. In 1963, he and long-time friend, American avant-garde composer John Cage, founded New York City’s Foundation for Contemporary Arts. a non-profit foundation which offers financial support and recognition to performing and visual artists. Johns received the National Medal of Arts in 1990 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
Insert Images:
Fred W McDarrah, “Jasper Johns- Whitney Museum”, 1977, Gelatin Silver Print
Jasper Johns, “6”, Portfolio “0 t=-9”, 1963, Lithograph, Edition of 10, 52.1 x 40 cm, Private Collection
Rachel Rosenthal, “Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns- Pearl Street, New York City”, 1954, Gelatin Silver Print, Rachel Rosenthal Trust