Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), American Pop Art painter, graphic artist, and sculptor, best known for his large-scale renditions of comic-strip art. He was born in New York, and graduated as a master of fine arts from Ohio State University in 1949. His early work was in the Abstract Expressionist style, but after 1957 he began to experiment with freely interpreted cartoon images from bubble-gum wrappers and with travestied images taken from paintings of the Old West by the American artist Frederick Remington. By 1961 Lichtenstein was completely dedicated to the making of art from mass-produced, merchandising images. His comic-strip paintings, such as Good Morning, Darling (1964, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York), are blowups of the original cartoon characters, reproduced by hand, with the same technique of dots and bright primary colours used in printing. His later works, which include reproductions of popular romance characters, stylized landscapes, and picture-postcard vulgarizations of Classical temples, show the influence of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. His sculptures also re-create comic-strip effects. In addition he produced ceramic works. In 1993 a retrospective of Lichtenstein's work was held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.