Joining the dots on Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein

Why Roy Lichtenstein Matters on March 22

THE Arts Society Newbury’s March lecturer was Dr Kate Aspinall. Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) was an American Pop Artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. He is pre-eminently identified with Pop

Art, a movement he helped originate, and his first fully achieved paintings were based on imagery from comic strips and advertisements.

His most celebrated image is arguably Whaam! (1963, Tate Modern, London), one of the earliest known examples of Pop Art, adapted from comic-book panels drawn by Irv Novick, Jerry Grandinetti and Russ Heath from a 1962 issue of DC Comics’ All-American Men of War. The painting depicts a fighter aircraft firing a rocket into an enemy plane, with a red-and-yellow explosion. The cartoon style is heightened using the onomatopoeic lettering Whaam! and the boxed caption “I pressed the fire control ... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky ...”

Pop Art is very much like Marmite, you either like it or you do not. As people typically spend 15 to 20 seconds looking at an image in a museum his works are easy to look at and understand but that belies his work. Interior with Mobile (1992) painted in oil and magna on canvas and is huge, 10’ 10’’ x 14’ 3’’. It uses Ben-Day dots and parallel lines to create a 3D effect. Black is used as a colour, not as a filler. Originally, Lichtenstein painted the dots by hand but latterly he used perforated screens. Comic books of the 1950s to 1970s used BenDay dots. He used magna paint as well as oil in his best-known works, which was an early acrylic. He painted in both mat and glossy paint to add texture, which is a sophistication many viewers often miss.

In 2017, his painting Masterpiece sold for

$165m in a private sale. On the market, Lichtenstein reigns as one of the most expensive Pop Artists out there. He was prolific and leaves behind a volume of work and Pop Art continues to influence the 21st century.

The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation was established in 1999 to facilitate public access to his work.