The former home of legendary artist Jasper Johns north of New York City is for sale for a very reasonable $600,000. Johns reportedly entertained art world titans including the likes of dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham at this two-bedroom residence in the town of Stony Point, 33 miles north of the George Washington Bridge. John Cage was his neighbor, and photographers Judy Tomkins and Arnold Newman portrayed him there.
Johns paid $48,000 for the 1930s house in 1973 and kept it until 1995, adding a living room, and a second-floor studio with repurposed garage doors that open to the wooded hillside outside. Several of his highly successful paintings were made during this period, including Flag (1983), which sold at Sotheby's New York for $36 million in 2014, Two Flags (1973), and Usuyuki (1979–81) - although not of course if they were created at Stony Brook studio.
The artist, who turned 93 this month, was the subject of a landmark two-site retrospective in 2021, staged by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Artnet News critic Ben Davis wrote, “I think Jasper Johns' dark introversion works oddly as a contrasting pop of color against the current hyper-pop moment. That's how I would defend him now.