Narkissos: The Last Translation
1978 · Pencil on primed linen
70 x 60" (177.8 x 152.4 cm)
Museum of Modern Art
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
Jess
Artist
Painting
Representation
None documented
4
Institutional Exhibitions
13
Works in Collection
18
Assets Indexed
1
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
80%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Movements
No movements recorded
Related Artists
No edges recorded
Influence Graph
No influence edges encoded yet.
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
View all exhibitions →No image
Selections from the Collection
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1978
No image
Projects: Translations by Jess
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1974
No image
American Collages
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1965
No image
The Art of Assemblage
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1961
About
Why this artist matters now
Jess (1923, 2004) was an American collagist and assemblage artist whose layered, densely worked compositions combined printed ephemera, found objects, and painted interventions into intricate visual narratives. Working from the 1950s onward, his practice engaged with dreams, mythology, and the detritus of consumer culture, creating what he called 'paste-ups' that functioned as both formal experiments and psychic excavations. His work challenged the autonomy of the picture plane through accumulation and visual density rather than reduction or gesture.
Source: Sothebys · Trust score: 100% · Updated 1mo ago
Graph relationships
Taste overlap and adjacency
Movement
—
Medium
Painting
Related Artists
6 in graph
Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (13)
View all 13 artworks →
Record
Images
Related artists
Adjacent in the graph
Record
Movements and affiliations
No movements linked yet
Institutional
Representation & Collections
In collection
Museum of Modern Art
New York, US
In collection
Art Institute of Chicago
In collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Record