Regrets from Johns

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By Temple Ligon

South Carolina’s Jasper Johns, the world’s most famous artist, gets invited to just about everything, and he really doesn’t care to attend any of them, apparently, so he keeps a rubber stamp that combines his signature with “Regrets,” at least to let the inviter know the invitee saw the notice but he regrets he just can’t make the event.

The board of trustees at the University of South Carolina voted to ask me to approach Johns a few years ago to accept an honorary doctorate. To do that he’d be expected to appear at graduation exercises and share a few words with the students.

The university gave me use of the school plane to pick up and return Johns at the airport nearest to his home in Sharon, Connecticut. My suggestion was the Hartford airport.

I put together our proposal in plenty of time, several months in advance, and I even included a private lunch at the home of one of his classmates from his fourth grade at A. C. Moore Elementary. Two other classmates from the same fourth grade group would sit at the table, making four altogether.

I had the calendar organized for a one-day turnaround where Johns would be picked up and delivered and returned, all in one day, but I also had a two-day contingency if Johns turned out to have the time for an overnight visit. There was enough flexibility with the plane to take Johns from his Connecticut home to Columbia and then to his home at St. Martin, if that would urge him into some cooperation.

He couldn’t do any of that, but his courtesy and his correspondence were correct. He sent me his regrets and he explained that he never accepted honorary degrees. This missive was on his personal stationery and signed. There was no “Regrets” and there was no stamped signature, so I guess we did all right as these things go.

About the same time I had a hot idea to enhance the academic offerings at USC and that idea included Johns. My thinking was that USC had dropped its master’s in art history, and here was an idea to put one back in place next to the school’s top-ranked international MBA. To pull this off, we needed to enter into negotiations with an art school of the first rank, but the highly ranked art school had to be part of a university with no business degree.

The Rhode Island School of Design was a good fit. Located up on the hillside in downtown Providence next to Brown University, RISD has no business offerings and neither does Brown. The RISD kids, though, can take just about anything available at Brown, and the Brown people have access to the courses at RISD. Still, no business education is at either school.

The greater Providence area has suffered New England’s highest unemployment long enough to suggest something drastic, a Southern strategy. RISD could branch out to Columbia and USC, putting its film school and programs in sculpture and painting and art history in downtown Columbia. Also, the RISD art museum in Providence would stay put, but a branch museum could be part of the Southern strategy.

USC and RISD together would offer their combined international MBA and master’s in art history, putting graduates into the job market among galleries, museums, auction houses – whatever needed the combined certified expertise in both art history and business. The College of Charleston has an arts management undergraduate program, and there are plenty of others offered across the country, but the heightened prestige and marketability of a combined USC/RISD degree made up of two master’s in art history and international business could be readily recognized as the best such program in the country.

Johns could be a tremendous help in leaving his personal art collection – works by other artists he bought and works he produced and never sold – for a small museum in Columbia, setting up the seed collection to attract RISD and further develop its Southern strategy.

I wrote Johns with this idea, laying out all the variations and possibilities, and he sent another polite note, this one written in hand. But at least there were no “Regrets” and a stamped signature.

Work from the past two years by Johns hung in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City through this past Labor Day. The exhibition was called “Regrets,” again reflecting on the volume of turndowns by Johns. The whole exhibition was put together in short order since many of the paintings and prints had already sold. The Regrets series is something of a departure for Johns, while all the work is clearly and stylistically Johns.

My lecture on Johns and his work is all set for 6:00 p.m. tonight at Greenville’s Gallery 17. We’ll start with pre-Flag pieces, and we’ll work our way through his career up to “Regrets,” all within one hour. It’s a tough call, but it’s all about the world’s most famous painter. Keep in mind: His personal collection has to go somewhere, so we might as well make it here.

 

 

 

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