Jasper Johns’s important painting In Memory of My Feelings – Frank O’Hara is a recent addition to the permanent collection. Johns titled his 1961 painting after a 1956 poem by Frank O’Hara, a writer, critic, and curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Johns and O’Hara were part of a circle of artists and writers, including John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Willem de Kooning, Maxine Groffsky, Robert Rauschenberg, and Larry Rivers, who were friends and, occasionally, collaborators. This exhibition uses In Memory of My Feelings – Frank O’Hara as a touchstone from which to examine how Johns used themes and aspects of O’Hara’s poetry and friendship in his art. Approximately eight works by Johns, including a limited-edition book published as a memorial to O’Hara after his accidental death in 1966, are presented.

The exhibition is organized by MCA Curatorial Assistant Sophia Shaw.