A leading member of the post war New York School of artists. 1930: Born in Augusta, Georgia. Grows up in South Carolina1947 - 1949: Student at the University of South Carolina.1949: Johns was drafted into the Army and stationed in Japan.1952: Johns moves to New York. Works in a bookshop and does window displays for stores like Tiffanys and Bonwit Teller with Robert Rauschenberg.1954: Johns destroys all his previous works.1954: Johns paints his first Flag painting. Meets John Cage.1955 - 1958: Johns paints the Flag series and his first Target paintings. All are figurative works in an age of abstraction.1958: First one-man show at the Leo Castelli gallery; three paintings sold to the Museum of Modern Art. Represented at the Venice Biennale.1959: Johns takes part in the group show 'Sixteen Americans' at the Museum of Modern Art, NY.1960: Johns egins working with lithographs.1961: First Map picture, exhibition in Paris at the Galerie Rive Droite.1964: Retrospective of Johns' work at the Jewish Museum, New York. Represented at the Venice Biennale.1965: Retrospective at the Passadena Art Museum.1966: One-man show of drawings at the National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington.1967: Johnsv rents a loft on Canal Street and illustrates Frank OHaras book of poems 'In Memory of my Feelings'. Artistic advisor for the composer John Cage and Merce Cunninghams Dance Company until 1972, collaborating with Robert Morris, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol and Bruce Naumann.1972: Represented at Documenta 4, Kassel. Spends seven weeks at Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles.1973: Meets Samuel Beckett in Paris. Moves to Stony Point, New York.1977: Retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. (Shown in 1978 in Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Musée National dArt Moderne, Paris, Hayward Gallery, London and Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo.1978: Represented at the Venice Biennale.1979: Exhibition of his graphic work at the Kunstmuseum Basle, which toured Europe.1985 - 1986: Paints the Seasons series.1988: Awarded the Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale.1997: Major retrospective of 225 pieces at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.Late 1990s, works out of a reconverted barn in Sharon, Connecticut. Raises bees as a hobby.