The Pop Master Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein – “Untitled Head”

“My work isn’t about form. It’s about seeing. I’m excited about seeing things, and I’m interested in the way I think other people see things.”
— Roy Lichtenstein

Ultimately, we look to art to see inside of ourselves and our world. Great artists have always made this possible. They translate reality back to us, giving us a clearer view. We come away understanding the mystery of existence a little more. Roy Lichtenstein did this through his exploration of color, lines, shapes and the visual language of 20th-century American pop culture.

Lichtenstein was not only an undisputed master of pop art, he helped form it. His breakthrough vision of art as a mirror for the “low brow” visual landscape of 60’s America catalyzed a massive change in the art scene, reforming and rejuvenating it in the process. His unmistakable style and impact are still powerful forces in the art world today.

But who was Lichtenstein? And what do those Ben-Day dots and blown-up comic book frames continue to say decades later?

Becoming an Artist

Lichtenstein was born in 1923 to a wealthy middle-class family living in the Upper West Side. He attended the prestigious Dwight School, where he developed a love for art and jazz music.

He later attended Ohio State University, interrupted by a three-year stint in the Army serving in World War II, and eventually studied under Hoyt L. Sherman who made a profound contribution to the young artist’s development.

He had his first solo exhibition in 1951, and through the next few years continued to experiment in many different styles of painting while securing work in design. That marriage between fine art and commercial printing processes would begin to form a unique idea that would come to be Lichtenstein’s calling card.

In 1960, while teaching at Rutgers University, Lichtenstein began to merge techniques, and in 1961 he created his first paintings in the pop style by blowing up frames from comic strips and recreating them with expressive alterations. The results were a success, and his first solo exhibition of this work was all purchased by collectors before it could even open.

Making Pop

“I’m never drawing the object itself; I’m only drawing a depiction of the object — a kind of crystallized symbol of it.”— Roy Lichtenstein

By focusing on comic strip pane