If there is a small but significant list of great living artist "household names" in America, Jasper Johns should sit near the top. And as it turns out, February is shaping up to be a particularly Johns-ian month: Earlier this week, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opened a large exhibit of Johns' works, titled "Jasper Johns: Gray," which originated at the Art Institute of Chicago. Three days earlier, and much closer to home, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMOCA) opened "Jasper Johns: The Prints."

Both exhibitions are retrospectives, tracing the half-century career of Johns, now 77 and still prolific. But the MMOCA show focuses solely on the artist 's prints -- with 100 lithographs, screenprints and intaglios -- making it the first and largest exhibit of its kind in the heartland.

The only other Johns print retrospectives were in 1978 at New York 's Museum of Modern Art and in 2001 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., says Richard Axsom, curator of collections at MMOCA.

"This is the next one on the charts, " he says.

Johns himself "endorsed the (MMOCA) show; he authorized it, " says Axsom, who tapped into long-time friendships and professional affiliations to borrow nearly all the pieces in the exhibition from four different sources. "You would usually do this with a living artist, just to get their blessing, but he 's taken a particular interest in this show because there hasn 't been a Johns show in this area. "

Although it doesn 't include paintings, "Jasper Johns: The Prints " is still quite a "coup " for MMOCA, says Andy Rubin, master printer at UW-Madison 's Tandem Press.

"Jasper is probably, along with Chuck Close (subject of another recent MMOCA exhibition), one of the world 's premier artists, " Rubin says. "I think a lot of people would go, Huh '? But Jasper, from the 1960s on, has been a really, really important artist in the name of modern art. There have been a lot of things that come from what he starts, and other people kind of take it, and art movements happen after that. "

"I say it unabashedly -- he 's the equal of Picasso, " adds Axsom, a self-described "print geek " and retired art professor. "If there was one course I wish I could have taught when I was at the University of Michigan, it would have been the great master printmakers in Western Art. And they would have been Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt, Goya, Picasso and Jasper Johns. "

Revolution of the commonplace

"Jasper Johns: The Prints " opens with a large photo portrait selected by the artist himself, in which a pensive -- and somewhat younger -- Johns wields an etching tool for one of the prints in the show. Born in Georgia in 1930, Johns grew up in a small South Carolina town where, he often has recalled, he never met an artist but knew he was destined to be one.

He moved to New York in his 20s, and in 1958 rocked the art world with his first gallery show.

In the years following World War II, abstract expressionism had become so entrenched that this once-radical style had essentially become "the academy, " says Axsom. American abstract art "had been cloned and re-cloned.

"And out of this comes this young man in his late 20s with these mesmerizing works, " he says. "His work was so fresh. It was so different. "

Like his close friend and contemporary Robert Rauschenberg, Johns "brought into the realm of art the everyday, " says Axsom. Well before the dawn of "pop " art (think Andy Warhol 's Campbell soup cans), Johns began to experiment with simple, ordinary images, such as targets, flags, stenciled numerals and letters.

The artist held up these images as subjects for art, "which many found blasphemous because, well, it wasn 't high ' enough, " Axsom explains. "Of course what was happening in Johns ' and Rauschenberg 's work was a revolution in what art might include as subject matter: Namely, the everyday and the commonplace.

"The mind already knows a target is a target, a flag is a flag, " the curator says. "There 's no backstory needed for a flag, a target, a numeral and a letter. He uses that as subject matter by which to test what that thing may mean or not mean, or what it could mean. "

A target or an eye?

Johns ' major pieces are paintings (in fact, his 1959 "False Start " sold in 2006 for $80 million, setting a record price for a painting by a living artist). Most of his prints are "responses " to those paintings, yet another way to take a "thing " and put it in a new context, says Axsom.

"Does a target ' become a wheel, a donut, an eye? Does it become something else than what it once was?"

"Jasper Johns: The Prints " is arranged chronologically, starting with those early target and flag images, moving through Johns ' signature experimentation with crosshatching and flagstone patterns, and ending with more recent works that took the art world aback because of their very un-Johns-ian autobiographical content. The show includes Johns ' first print, "Target " (1960) and his most recent, a 2007 etching entitled "Within. "

To help grasp it all, visitors can view a 30-minute documentary film, "Jasper Johns: Take an Object, " running continuously in the gallery. Highly recommended: Free gallery talks at 6:30 p.m. on Friday and Feb. 22 and 28 with experts who can explain Johns ' ideas and technique.

"Jasper Johns: The Prints " is designed "to look at the work as a whole, and also to reach new audiences, " Axsom explains. "I can almost quote (Johns) in saying that he was pleased that people who do not know his work that well will have an opportunity to become acquainted with him.

"His work is paradoxical to the extent that it is cerebral, intellectual, beautiful, sensual, (and) if complex, very accessible, " Axsom says. "It 's almost as though the way you describe the art is the art itself: Dealing in ambiguities and enigmas for the viewer to sort out for himself or herself.

"You and I go to an exhibition, and we personally respond, right?, " he continues. "The very subject of Johns ' art is the relationship between the viewer and the work of art and how we discover meaning in the work of art. But that is really a metaphor for the larger ambition of his art, which is to address how we discover meaning in the world to begin with."

IF YOU GO

What: "Jasper Johns: The Prints"

Where: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State St.

When: Through April 13. Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturdays; noon-5 p.m. Sundays.

Admission: Free

Information: www.mmoca.org 

JASPER JOHNS: ART STAR

Big money: In 2006, Johns' 1959 painting "False Start" was sold by Hollywood mogul David Geffen to Citadel Investment Group founder Kenneth Griffin for $80 million, making it the most expensive painting by a living artist.

Age and residences: 77, with homes in Connecticut and the Caribbean, where he continues to create art.

Current exhibits: While his "Prints" exhibit appears in Madison, an exhibit of his works in gray runs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It also originated at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Odd fact: Johns was a guest star in "The Simpsons'" episode "Mom and Pop Art" about Homer accidentally becoming an artist.

Best Biography: "Jasper Johns," (1977) by Michael Crichton; by far the best book on Johns, according to MMOCA curator Richard Axsom.

First print: "Target," a 1960 lithograph and the opening image in MMOCA's current show.

Most recent print: "Within," 2007, also in MMOCA's show.

Big break: With his first gallery show in New York in 1958, where his revolutionary new approach to art catapulted him to fame overnight.

Raised: In small-town South Carolina, where he says he never met an artist, though he always knew he wanted to be one.