Jasper Johns received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama on February 15, 2011. Johns had already been central to postwar American art for more than half a century, particularly through his encaustic paintings of flags, targets, maps, numbers, and letters, which unsettled the boundary between Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dada, and Pop art. The award placed a living experimental painter within the United States' highest civilian honor system and was notable because Johns became the first painter or sculptor to receive the medal since Alexander Calder in 1977. The ceremony recognized not a single work, but the broad cultural authority Johns's images had gained in American visual life.
The award confirmed Johns's status as a national cultural figure as well as a market and museum landmark.
