Johns and Castelli

The master and the maestro, after thirty years

Too much to see, too little time: Romancing this month's culture cupids

GALLERY GALA

ARTS FAIR

In March 1957, a month after opening his gallery, Leo Castelli visited the Jewish Museum and saw his first Jasper Johns painting (Green Target) and stood and stared and stood and stared. Later he said, "It was like the sensation you feel when you see a very beautiful girl for the first time, and after five minutes you want to ask her to marry you." Prudently, he made a proposal to the painter. Johns had his first show at Castelli's gallery the following January, and the rest is ait history: by the end of that first Saturday, Abstract Expressionism was a wasm, Johns was a one-man ism, and the sixties (Stella, Pop, Minimalism) had the hinge on which to swing. Through thick and thicker—an early Johns painting sold at auction last fall for $3.63 million, a record for a living artist—the two have stayed together, shaping things. And no analyst need be called in to see why. Both are quietly direct, both temper ambition with old-world elegance, and both do what they do very, very well. This month, Johns's new suite of paintings, "The Seasons," is hanging at Castelli, and the galleiy itself is celebrating its thirtieth birthday. Ars longa, life too! Leo Castelli Gallery. New York. (Opens 1/31)

GERALD MARZORATI