“I would like you to be pleased with the idea and I hope that you will visit my studio to see what I have made,” Johns wrote. It is one of the newest works in “Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror,” an exhibition so extensive that it will open in two locations this week: at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Togodgue’s drawing - with his labeling of ligaments in French and his colorful signature - is a key element of “Slice,” a 5.6-by-4.3-foot painting that Johns started in early 2019 and completed late last year. “I should have asked you then if you would mind my using it,” Johns continued in the letter, “but I was not certain that my idea would ever materialize.” As Togodgue learned in the April letter, he “thought that the image might be useful,” so he decided to copy it for what would become a new painting titled “Slice.” (Chelsea Sinclair) RIGHT: Jéan-Marc Togodgue standing next to Jasper John's “Slice.” (Photo by Jeff Ruskin)
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LEFT: Jéan-Marc Togodgue's original drawing in his doctors office. Jéan-Marc Togodgue standing next to Jasper John's “Slice.” (Photo by Jeff Ruskin) He says he gave it to his surgeon as a token of appreciation. “I drew it is because I wanted to understand my body, like what went wrong inside my knee,” Togodgue says. Togodgue, who had always sketched animated characters on his school notebooks, created it from an image he found on the Internet in 2017, after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus while playing soccer. During a visit in 2019, the decorated artist noticed a colorful, cheaply framed drawing of the anatomy of a knee. Johns and Togodgue share an orthopedic surgeon, Alexander M. The backstory starts in a doctor’s office. It would also spark a legal dispute - eventually settled - as well as raise questions about how artists use other people’s works to create their own.
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After introducing himself, Johns told Togodgue about a decision he had made that would forever link the 91-year-old, Georgia-born art legend with the 17-year-old student and basketball standout.