lichtenstein pop art

Besides embodying the cultural prejudice against comic books as vehicles of art, examples like Lichtenstein’s appropriation of the vocabulary of comics highlight the importance of taking publication format in consideration when defining comics, as well as the political economy implied by specific types of historical publications, in this case the American mainstream comic book. To what extent was National Periodical Publications (later DC) responsible for the rejection of the roles of Kanigher and Novick as artists in their own right by not granting them full authorial credit on the publication itself?” [50]

His most celebrated image is arguably Whaam! (1963, Tate Modern, London [33] ), one of the earliest known examples of pop art, adapted from a comic-book panel drawn by Irv Novick in a 1962 issue of DC Comics’ All-American Men of War. [34] The painting depicts a fighter aircraft firing a rocket into an enemy plane, with a red-and-yellow explosion. The cartoon style is heightened by the use of the onomatopoeic lettering “Whaam!” and the boxed caption “I pressed the fire control . and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky . “ This diptych is large in scale, measuring 1.7 x 4.0 m (5 ft 7 in x 13 ft 4 in). [33] Whaam follows the comic strip-based themes of some of his previous paintings and is part of a body of war-themed work created between 1962 and 1964. It is one of his two notable large war-themed paintings. It was purchased by the Tate Gallery in 1966, after being exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1963, and (now at the Tate Modern) has remained in their collection ever since. In 1968, the Darmstadt entrepreneur Karl Ströher acquired several major works by Lichtenstein, such as Nurse (1964), Compositions I (1964), We rose up slowly (1964) and Yellow and Green Brushstrokes (1966). After being on loan at the Hessiches Landesmuseum Darmstadt for several years, the founding director of the Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, Peter Iden, was able to acquire a total of 87 works [35] from the Ströher collection [36] in 1981, primarily American Pop Art and Minimal Art for the museum under construction until 1991. [37]

Although best known as a painter, he made different types of art including sculpture, murals, prints and ceramics.
Cartoons, comics and big bangs! Explore the explosive art of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was one of the first American Pop artists to achieve widespread renown, and he became a lightning rod for criticism of the movement. His early work ranged widely in style and subject matter, and displayed considerable understanding of modernist painting: Lichtenstein would often maintain that he was as interested in the abstract qualities of his images as he was in their subject matter. However, the mature Pop style he arrived at in 1961, which was inspired by comic strips, was greeted by accusations of banality, lack of originality, and, later, even copying. His high-impact, iconic images have since become synonymous with Pop art, and his method of creating images, which blended aspects of mechanical reproduction and drawing by hand, has become central to critics’ understanding of the significance of the movement.
American Painter, Sculptor, and Lithographer

Introduction Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the premise of pop art through parody. Inspired by the comic strip, Lichtenstein produced precise compositions that documented while they parodied, often in a tongue-in-cheek manner. His work was influenced by popular advertising and the comic book style. He described pop art as “not ‘American’ painting but actually industrial painting”. His paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City. Whaam! and Drowning Girl are generally regarded as Lichtenstein’s most famous works, with Oh, Jeff. I Love You, Too. But. arguably third. Drowning Girl, Whaam! and Look Mickey are regarded as his most influential works. His most expensive piece is Masterpiece, which was sold for $165 million in January 2017. Wikidata Q151679
Lichtenstein soon turned his attention from the clichés of commercial print culture to the aesthetic clichés of high art. 4 With bold, graphic simulations of brushstrokes in prints like Brushstroke and Brushstrokes, for example, he parodied the autographic mark-making of Abstract Expressionism. Yet where Jackson Pollock had been seen to imbue his skeins of paint with a bravura energy and force, Lichtenstein turned that device into something clichéd, commercial, and reproducible. “Visible brushstrokes in a painting convey a sense of grand gesture; but in my hands, the brushstroke becomes a depiction of a grand gesture,” he later said. 5

When American Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein painted Look Mickey in 1961, it set the tone for his career. This primary-color portrait of the cartoon mouse introduced Lichtenstein’s detached and deadpan style at a time when introspective Abstract Expressionism reigned. Mining material from advertisements, comics, and the everyday, Lichtenstein brought what was then a great taboo—commercial art—into the gallery. He stressed the artificiality of his images by painting them as though they’d come from a commercial press, with the flat, single-color Ben-Day dots of the newspaper meticulously rendered by hand using paint and stencils. Later in his career, Lichtenstein extended his source material to art history, including the work of Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso, and experimented with three-dimensional works. Lichtenstein’s use of appropriated imagery has influenced artists such as Richard Prince, Jeff Koons, and Raymond Pettibon.
When American Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein painted Look Mickey in 1961, it set the tone for his career. This primary-color portrait of the cartoon mouse introduced Lichtenstein’s detached and deadpan style at a time when introspective Abstract Expressionism reigned. Mining material from advertisements, comics, and the everyday, Lichtenstein brought what was then a great taboo—commercial art—into the gallery. He stressed the artificiality of his images by painting them as though they’d come from a commercial press, with the flat, single-color Ben-Day dots of the newspaper meticulously rendered by hand using paint and stencils. Later in his career, Lichtenstein extended his source material to art history, including the work of Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso, and experimented with three-dimensional works. Lichtenstein’s use of appropriated imagery has influenced artists such as Richard Prince, Jeff Koons, and Raymond Pettibon.

References:

http://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-roy-lichtenstein
http://m.theartstory.org/artist/lichtenstein-roy/
http://www.moma.org/artists/3542
http://www.artsy.net/artist/roy-lichtenstein
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein