In Memory of My Feelings—Frank O’Hara

Narrator: The proportions of this composition echo those of the American flag, one of the subjects that had made Johns famous by the time he made this work in 1961. But instead of the stars and stripes, he’s covered this painting in abstract marks made in shades of gray. A spoon and fork dangle in front of its surface, isolated.  

Johns titled the painting In Memory of My Feelings, after a poem by his friend Frank O’Hara.

Brad Gooch: And it was at a time for Jasper Johns, I think, when he was breaking up with Robert Rauschenberg and I think the title appealed to him.

Narrator: Brad Gooch is the author of City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara.

Brad Gooch: And the poem has to do with the various loves and selves that we have, and thematically, it was sort of about lost love turning into art in some way.

[O’Hara] was a brilliant poet, writing especially poems of the city. He was also a critic for Art News and for Culture Magazine. And—a career path that I don’t know could be replicated today—began working at The Museum of Modern Art in 1951, selling postcards by the cashier’s desk, so that he could see the Matisse exhibit mounted by his hero, Alfred Barr, as often as he wanted. Somehow he rises from this to become an associate curator doing traveling, circulating shows in Europe for the international program, and then the associate curator of painting and sculpture for the museum.

Narrator: O’Hara was killed in a dune buggy accident on Fire Island in 1966. You’ll find one of Johns’s memorials to him elsewhere in this gallery—a sculpture called Memory Piece. It incorporates a cast of the poet’s foot, which Johns had made earlier.