In 1954, a 24-year-old Jasper Johns destroyed every piece of art he owned to force himself into original territory. This episode follows his life from a turbulent childhood in the rural South, where the only paintings he saw were his step-grandmother's landscapes, through Korean War service in Japan, a bookstore job in New York, and the intense romantic and artistic partnership with Robert Rauschenberg on Pearl Street that set the stage for his breakthrough.

We look at why painting a flag, a target, or the alphabet was radical in an era dominated by abstract expressionism, how his encaustic beeswax technique preserved every brushstroke and newspaper scrap, and why MoMA's trustees were too afraid of McCarthy-era politics to buy his flag until architect Philip Johnson quietly bought it and donated it years later. The conversation covers the S ...