Very good condition.
Signed, dated and numbered lower right.
Overall light undulation.
Crease to the lower left corner.
Tape residue in several places along the edges of the reverse.

Publisher: Petersburg Press, Ltd., New York



This work was created based on a 1955 painting of the same title held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, made using encaustic (beeswax), collage, and plaster casts on canvas.
At a time when Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists were gaining recognition from critics such as Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg, Johns burst onto the scene with his paintings of "flags" and "targets," ushering in a new era. In the January 1958 issue of ARTnews, Rosenberg grouped him together with Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and others, introducing them as "Neo-Dada" on the basis of their similarities to Dadaism.
It can be said that by incorporating into his work things that are generally not considered art — objects familiar from everyday life — Johns created works that pose important questions: how can we make people stop and pause before things they would otherwise pass by without a second thought? If the ordinary objects around us can become art, what are the elements that make them art?
In the painted version, a plaster cast of the lower half of a face appears in one section of the work. In this print, four instances of the word "FACE" are arranged as mirror images — a result of the printmaking process itself, in which everything drawn is reversed upon transfer.