How a Gray Painting Can Break Your Heart

Close Read is a series produced by Alicia DeSantis, Nick Donofrio, Gabriel Gianordoli, Tala Safie and Josephine Sedgwick.

Images: Jasper Johns/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York: “In Memory of My Feelings — Frank O’Hara” (1961)/Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; “Disappearance II” (1961)/Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design; “Water Freezes” (1961)/Wildenstein Plattner Institute; “Screen Piece” (1967)/Wildenstein Plattner Institute; “Jubilee” (1959); “Fountain Pen” (1961); “Figure 3” (1960); “Flag” (1954-55, dated on reverse 1954)/Museum of Modern Art; “White Flag” (1955)/Metropolitan Museum of Art; “No” (1961)/Matthew Marks Gallery; “Liar” (1961)/Art Institute of Chicago; “Good Time Charley” (1961)/Art Institute of Chicago; Tailpiece (folio 53 verso) from “In Memory of My Feelings,” (1967) by Frank O’Hara/Museum of Modern Art; “Voice” (1964/1967)/Menil Collection; “Tantric Detail III” (1981)/Museum of Modern Art; “Fall” (1986); “Untitled” (2017); Installation view of “Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror” at the Whitney Museum of American Art/Charlie Rubin for The New York Times (2); Installation view of “Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror” at the Whitney Museum of American Art/Ron Amstutz. Paul Cézanne, “Mont Sainte-Victoire” (1902–1904)/Philadelphia Museum of Art; Barnett Newman, “Onement I” (1948)/Barnett Newman Foundation and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via Museum of Modern Art; Mark Rothko, “No. 5/No. 22” (1950, dated on reverse 1949)/Kate Rothko Prizel, Christopher Rothko and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via Museum of Modern Art; Willem de Kooning, “Woman I” (1950–52)/Willem de Kooning Foundation and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via Museum of Modern Art; Jackson Pollock, “One: Number 31” (1950)/Pollock-Krasner Foundation and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via Museum of Modern Art; Johns in his Pearl Street Studio, New York, 1955/George Moffett; Jasper Johns/Peter Stackpole and The LIFE Picture Collection, via Shutterstock; Robert Rauschenberg, “Untitled [Jasper with flag painting, Pearl Street studio]” (circa 1955)/Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Robert Rauschenberg, “Short Circuit (Combine Painting)” (1955)/Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via Art Institute of Chicago; Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns in Johns’s Pearl Street studio, circa 1954/Rachel Rosenthal Trust (2); Installation view Castelli Gallery “Group Show” (1961-1962)/Rudy Burckhardt, via Castelli Gallery; trans-illuminated X-ray photograph/Fred Orton’s “Figuring Jasper Johns”; Larry Rivers, “Double Portrait of Frank O’Hara” (1955)/Estate of Larry Rivers and VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via Museum of Modern Art; Willem de Kooning, Plate (folio 59 verso) from “In Memory of My Feelings” (1967) by Frank O’Hara/Willem de Kooning Foundation and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via Museum of Modern Art.

Poems: “In Memory of My Feelings” and “Ode to Willem de Kooning” from “THE COLLECTED POEMS OF FRANK O’HARA” by Frank O’Hara, copyright 1971 by Maureen Granville-Smith, Administratrix of the Estate of Frank O’Hara, copyright renewed 1999 by Maureen O’Hara Granville-Smith and Donald Allen. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.