Jasper Johns was a painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was one of America's best-known post-abstract expressionists and minimalists. When people think of Jasper Johns, they usually think of images of flags and numbers. Johns completed his first flag painting in 1955. He was born in Allendale, South Carolina and grew up without formal art training, but attended the University of South Carolina for two years. In 1949, he moved to New York but was drafted into the army. Returning to New York, he began experimenting with styles and "Flag", dated 1955, earned him his first major attention. It was revolutionary in that it was simply a geometric drawing on a large canvas, divorced from any emotion. In subsequent years, Johns used the same approach with other traditionally symbolic images. From 1956 to 1957, he added numbers to his paintings. In 1960, he produced his first lithographs. In 1959 his work became very abstract with very bright colors with letters and other symbols, like maps and some difficult to read. In the late 1990s, Johns worked in a barn in Sharon, Connecticut, and had a strange hobby: raising bees. I think Jasper Johns' earlier work was simpler and just "there", while his later work was much more diverse. Some of his later paintings were extremely colorful and vibrant, while others made you depressed just looking at them. I also thought that his later works required much more skill on his part. I find that painting the Uni...