Why do we only hear about Jasper Johns when he gets ripped off?

The case of a foundry owner who forged one of the artist's most iconic works proves that you can copy art ... but you can't fake originality

Jasper Johns is the greatest artist alive. It seems a shame that he only enters the headlines when people rip him off. Johns was in court this week to give evidence against a Queens, New York foundry owner, Brian Ramnarine, who has now pleaded guilty to faking one of the artist's works. It was a bronze version of one of the most iconic of all American paintings: Flag. Johns had made four bronze copies of Flag in 1960 at Ramnarine's foundry. Although Ramnarine did not have permission to keep the original mould or create more sculptures from it, he made one more and tried to sell it for $11m (£6.6m).

Pictures of Jasper Johns outside the courthouse revealed his age. He is the last survivor of a great triumvirate. In the 1950s he, Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly revolutionised art. They are the Cubists of contemporary art – by which I mean profound pioneers who opened the way for everything since – and yet whose originality has never quite been equalled. Now Twombly and Rauschenberg are gone.

With one court case behind him, Johns faces another when his long-time assistant goes on trial for selling his works behind his back.

In the end, these stories are just tittle tattle. The only interesting thing about the Flag trial was a moving photograph, produced in court, of Johns presenting one of the four bronze versions he made to John F Kennedy.

Why did he make those bronze flags? For money? And is it OK to scam a modern artist because modern art is a money-making scam anyway? No, for Flag is great art.

The original painting, also called Flag, is not exactly conventional. It is an object, with a waxy solidity as much sculptural as painterly.

Johns made this first Flag in 1954 to 55. When you look at its surface, fragments of newsprint peep through a semi-opaque hardened surface. Its strange texture comes from the artist's use of encaustic, a wax medium that is as old as Ancient Egypt. It gives the painting a frozen quality, a monumental stillness. Through this coloured death mask you try to read collaged news stories.

What seems simple is complex and suggestive. The realities of the US, as told in the news, peep through the iconic stars and bars. Flag is an epic poem about the United States.

When Johns cast it in bronze, he gave it another layer of monumental dignity. This was a patriotic souvenir, one he gave in high hopes to JFK. The bronze edition of Flag is not just a money-making gimmick, but a declaration of faith in the new America of the 1960s.

Flag endures. The criminal case is just one more story in its great US collage.

Jasper JohnsIntellectual propertyPaintingArtSculptureJonathan Jones
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