Gemini season may have just begun, but we’d be remiss not to mention one of South Carolina’s most famous Tauruses — Jasper Johns — who recently celebrated his ninety first birthday on May 15.

Johns who is “arguably the most famous living American artist” was born in Augusta, GA but raised in various parts of SC and attended three semesters of art school at the University of South Carolina before he moved to New York.

He is best known for his series featuring the familiar + commonplace — flags, numbers, maps, targets, and letters. He began this style of artwork in the 1950s and allegedly destroyed all his previous work.

One of his most recognizable works is an encaustic (consisting of bees wax + resin) called Flag that was created in 1954-55. Beneath the iconic stars + stripes are newspaper scraps from the time frame the work of art was created.

Jasper’s work has been displayed in the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Art, and the SC artist even holds a Guinness World Record for the most expensive painting ($110,000,000) by a living artist sold in a private sale.

If this piqued your interest, two of his works are now on display at the The Johnson Collection Gallery in Spartanburg. (The Greenville County Museum of Art has a collection of paintings + prints by Johns but is currently closed to complete several planned building projects.)