Roy Lichtenstein

 

Roy Lichtenstein was born in 1923 in New York, where he died in 1997. His work has been exhibited extensively worldwide. Recent retrospective surveys include “All About Art,” Louisiana Museum, Humelbaek (2003, traveled to Hayward Gallery, London; Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through 2005); “Classic of the New,” Kunsthaus Bregenz (2005); and “Roy Lichtenstein: Meditations on Art,” Museo Triennale, Milan (2010, traveled to Museum Ludwig Cologne). “Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective” opened at the Art Institute of Chicago in May of 2012 and traveled to National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and Tate Modern, London. It is currently on view through November 4, 2013 at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

 

Roy Lichtenstein’s early appropriation of the aesthetics of American popular culture made him integral to the development of Pop art. A student of the work of Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Paul Klee, Lichtenstein incorporated elements of contemporary art theory and popular print media into his painting. 

 

In 1961 he began to replicate the Benday dot system used in mass-circulation printed sources such as comics, newspapers, and billboards; this would become a signature element of his painting and sculpture. By mimicking this industrial method and appropriating images from high and low culture, his work realized a broader accessibility that had not yet been achieved in contemporary art. 

 

Some of his most recognizable series evolved from imagery drawn from popular culture: advertising images, war-time comics, and pin-up portraits, as well as traditional painting genres such as landscapes, still lifes, and interiors.