Trophy V For Jasper Johns

Robert Rauschenberg’s Trophy V For Jasper Johns: A Dialogue in Print

Conceived in 1962 at the height of Robert Rauschenberg’s collaboration with Jasper Johns, Trophy V For Jasper Johns distills the playful yet profound exchange between two artists who redefined American modernism. This lithograph, part of Rauschenberg’s Trophy series, transforms the act of gift-giving into a visual conversation—one where Johns’s iconic flag motifs and Rauschenberg’s combinatorial wit merge on a single sheet. The work’s layered imagery, blending screenprinted text with gestural marks, exemplifies the Neo-Dada ethos: a rejection of high-art pretension in favor of the tactile and the everyday.

The lithograph’s composition hinges on a tension between precision and spontaneity. Rauschenberg’s use of commercial printing techniques—overlaid with hand-drawn elements—mirrors the era’s fascination with mass media’s intrusion into fine art. As The Museum of Modern Art notes, this period marked Rauschenberg’s shift from the Combines to more serial, reproducible works, a transition that Trophy V embodies through its hybrid of personal and mechanical mark-making. The dedication to Johns, inscribed directly onto the plate, elevates the print from object to artifact of artistic kinship.

1962: Rauschenberg at the Crossroads of Print and Performance

By 1962, Robert Rauschenberg had already dismantled the boundaries between painting and sculpture with his Combines, yet his turn to printmaking that year signaled a new phase. The Trophy series emerged alongside his collaborations with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, where stage designs and costumes demanded reproducibility. This lithograph series, produced at Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), leveraged the workshop’s technical innovations to achieve effects previously impossible in print—layered transparencies, embossed textures, and photographic transfers that mimicked his Combines.

Critically, Trophy V belongs to a moment when Rauschenberg and Johns were inseparable both personally and professionally. Their mutual influence is evident in the work’s juxtaposition of Johns’s flag—an emblem of his own oeuvre—with Rauschenberg’s scrawled dedication. The print’s physicality, from the weight of the paper to the ink’s matte finish, reflects Rauschenberg’s insistence on the objecthood of art, a principle that would later define his Cardbirds and Hoarfrost series. As the Tate Modern’s retrospective highlights, this period marked his transition from destroyer of conventions to architect of new ones.

“Trophy V isn’t a portrait of Johns but a record of their dialogue—where the flag becomes a shared vocabulary, and the lithographic plate, their common ground.”

The Lithograph as Collage: How Trophy V Was Made

Layered Transfers and Tactile Contrasts

Rauschenberg exploited ULAE’s facilities to combine stone lithography with photo-transfer techniques. The flag’s crisp edges—likely derived from a photographic negative—contrast with the smudged, hand-drawn text (“FOR JASPER JOHNS”), creating a push-pull between mechanical reproduction and artistic gesture. This duality mirrors the Combines, where found objects collided with brushstrokes.

Embossing and Ink as Sculptural Elements

The print’s surface isn’t flat but topographically varied. Rauschenberg employed embossing to imprint textures into the paper, casting shadows that activate the composition under changing light. The ink’s absorption into the rag paper further blurs the line between print and painting, a technique he’d refine in later series like Stoned Moon (1969), where NASA imagery met lithographic experimentation.

Displaying Trophy V For Jasper Johns: A Curator’s Approach

This print’s graphic boldness and muted palette make it remarkably versatile. In a modernist interior, pair it with raw materials—concrete floors, steel shelving—to echo its industrial lithographic origins. The 30×40 cm dimensions suit a gallery wall above a console table, where its layered textures invite closer inspection. For minimalist spaces, let it stand alone on a matte black or white wall; the flag’s red will anchor the room without overwhelming it. Avoid busy patterns nearby—the print’s strength lies in its quiet contrast of flat color and tactile mark-making.

More Works by Robert Rauschenberg

Explore Rauschenberg’s boundary-pushing prints, from early Combines-inspired works to his late-career innovations.

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