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Roy Lichtenstein

"My style is as artificial as possible."

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Notes of biography

Roy Lichtenstein is born in Pittsburg (USA) in 1923 and comes from a wealthy family of New Yorker upper class. It is in his teens during his spare time that he becomes interested in art and design. In 1939, after his final year of high school, the young man follows summer classes at the Art Students League of New York. During his schooling, Lichtenstein develops a passion for jazz music. In 1942, Lichtenstein follows the course of Professor HL Sherman, "Drawing by the gaze", where students setting in darkness, must draw objects installed in the middle of the room, objects illuminated one split second by the flash of a camera; theories of Sherman on the "orderly perception”, emphasizing the visual experience which are fundamental in the work of Lichtenstein.
In 1947, Lichtenstein successfully completes his high school and left New York, he enrolls at the State University of Ohio where he graduates in fine arts in 1949. During this period, he paints portraits and still life, influenced by Picasso and Braque; he also follows a course in sculpture. He interrupts his studies during the Second World War and enrolls in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946. He keeps a sketchbook, drawing landscapes and portraits of soldiers. After the war he resumes his studies in Ohio and graduates; Lichtenstein is hired as a teacher. His first exhibition is held in Canada in 1951.
He moves to Cleveland in 1951, where he lives during six years while traveling frequently to New York. Between two periods of artistic production he has varied jobs. At that time, his work oscillates between Cubism and Expressionism. Beginning in 1952, Liechtenstein joins the plethora of artists of John Heller Gallery in New York and presents ironic and post-Cubist interpretations of famous nineteenth century American paintings; that is the pre-pop period.
In 1957 he moves to New York. Roy Lichtenstein begins teaching at the State University of New York in 1958 (at Oswego, in upstate New York). In 1960 he begins teaching at Rutgers University, where Allan Kaprow who also teaches there heavily influences him. During his first year at Rutgers, Lichtenstein's work is abstract. In this environment, in 1961, he produces his first pop charts, with pictures of cartoons with techniques based on advertising works. In 1961, Leo Castelli begins to exhibit Lichtenstein’s works in his gallery in New York there Lichtenstein receives his first solo exhibition in 1962. That same year the pop works of Lichtenstein appear in six major U.S. exhibitions. He becomes one of the most important artists of the American Pop Art movement.
Advertising and comics (comic books), popular imagery of that time heavily inspire his work. Lichtenstein uses a frame, and is based, for inspiration, on stereotypes of hygiene or food. The artist loves the dish, and fall in advertising convention. In the early 1990s, the artist and his family take their disposition to create a private foundation to facilitate public access to his art and the art of his time.
Victim of pneumonia, Lichtenstein dies in 1997 in Manhattan (New York).

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
* « Drawings and prints », D. Waldman, P. Bianchi book, Ed. Chelsea House Publishers, 1969 All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « Lichtenstein », Jack Cowart, Ed. Hudson Hills Press, 1981
  • « Special R. Lichtenstein », in Artstudio n°20, Paris, collectif, Printemps 1991
  • « Roy Lichtenstein », Diane Waldman, Ed. Abrams, New York, 1994
  • « Roy Lichtenstein », Diane Waldman, cat., Ed. Guggenheim Museum, 1993
  • « L’art de Roy Lichtenstein », B. Aldelman et C. Tomkins, Ed. Altinéa, 1994
  • « Evolution, R. Lichtenstein », M. Restellini, Ed. Pinacothèque de Paris, 2007
  • « Roy Lichtenstein Sculptor », C. Bell et I. Wallace, Ed. Skira, 2013
  • « R. Lichtenstein - A retrospective », S. Wagstaff, J. Rondeau, Yale University Pr., 2012
  • « Roy Lichtenstein au Centre Pompidou », coll., cat., Ed. Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2013
  • « Lichtenstein », Janis Hendrickson, coll. Basic Art, Ed. Taschen, 2016
To read from the artist :
  • « Aventure de l’art moderne », vidéo n°10/13 de la série, C. Vilardebo, FR3, 198
  • « Ce que je crée, c'est de la forme - Entretiens 1963-1997 », coll., Ed. C. Pompidou, 2013
Website :
www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/

More :


Art movements

+ POP'ART / 1955-1970 / Pauline Boty, Sigmar Polke, Romero Britto, Tom Wesselmann, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover