Like many faculty, students, and staff, Cathryn B. Heath, MD, associate professor of family medicine and community health, passes by the Johns prints every day. “I love the fact that we have these beautiful, museum-quality prints hanging here at eye level for everyone to enjoy,” she says. Mr. Johns emphasizes technique over subject matter. Abstract designs and everyday objects—flags, maps, numerals, targets—most appeal to him. Originally a painter and sometime sculptor, he discovered printmaking in 1960, and it became his preferred art form. Printmaking has allowed him to rearrange pattern, color, and negative space in almost limitless ways and satisfied his passion for exploring logic in the artistic process. The six lithographs demonstrate this passion and are emblematic of Mr. Johns’s work in the 1970s. He made many variations of the crosshatch design, but this series is distinguished by its pulsating primary colors and complex patterns arranged in six variations. Only in the fourth print does the pattern fill the entire sheet of paper. In the other prints, varied arrangements of color and space reveal how blocks of white can serve as negative space to accentuate the vibrancy of the cross-hatchings. These lithographs, created in 1976, were donated by Nancy Easton Wade, PhD, in honor of her mother, Elsie Easton, who died from breast cancer, and her brother-inlaw, Reuven Snyderman, MD, who helped develop the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center at the medical school. An avid collector of mid-20th-century graphics, Dr. Wade was closely affiliated with the master printer Ken Tyler, part owner of Gemini GEL. She helped develop the trend toward exhibiting contemporary works of art in health care settings, where they would brighten and enhance an often stark environment. And patients would appreciate them. “Art shouldn’t be in isolation,” she says. “It should be something you enjoy. You might not necessarily like it, but it grabs your interest.” M PHOTOS BY JOHN EMERSON COURTESY OF NANCY EASTON WADE, PHD N ancy E. Wade, PhD, with her brother-in-law, Reuven Snyderman, MD, at the dedication of the series of six Jasper Johns lithographs that she donated to the medical school in honor of Dr. Snyderman, and her mother, Elsie Easton. Robert Wood Johnson I MEDICINE 21