LEO CASTELLI AND EARLY POP ART

Castelli didn't open his own gallery — actually, a converted bedroom in his Upper East Side apartment — until 1957, and it was another year before he made his biggest splash, the first solo exhibition of a promising Southerner not yet 30: Jasper Johns. Castelli had seen his work in a group show at New York's pioneering Jewish Museum, but the "discovery" came only when Castelli was taking a studio tour of another young Southerner who'd also shown in the museum's exhibition: Rauschenberg. The two artists (neither Jewish) were neighbors and shared a fridge. When Castelli wanted ice in his drink, there was Johns, surrounded by his painted flags and targets and alphabets. Castelli signed them both.

L.A Times
May 23 2010