Gallery

01.12.15: Gallery Text - All Images © Estate/Foundation Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was a leading American Pop artist. In my view the leading Pop artist and, certainly, in the minds eye of the public, the most endearing. He began by painting cowboy and Indian subjects; in 1957 he was influenced by Abstract Impressionism, and by 1961 achieved a breakthrough with his enlarged dot images. His usually large pictures (which for me are part of the power and unforgettableness of his work) are based on the magnification of details from advertisements of everyday objects and everyday things - most famously strip-cartoons - Blonde Waiting (1964) or Whaam (1963: London, Tate).

What has always been intriguing to me with regard to his work is the technique and how he makes the ordinary extraordinary. Extraordinarily ordinary. It is based on the coarse screen process of cheap newspaper printing and the translation of commonplace sources into simple but powerful patterns through the prism of his stylized forms. All of this is expressed in strong, primary colours, or in black and white.

The effect of seeing a Lichtenstein can be hynotic. It is astonishing, spellbinding, a kind of shamanic experience. Whatever your knowledge of art I would say that to see a Lichtenstein in the flesh will move you in a way few other pieces of art can hope to emulate. It is just extraordianary to see how he could disassociate recognizable objects from their surroundings and make them powerful works of art. One of the most accomplished and penetratingly realist portrait painters of all time was Hans Holbein The Younger (1497/8 - 1543), and in his penetration of his subject matter Lichtenstein is the 20th-century's equivalent.

He also experimented with dazzling effects of coloured plastics, and brass and enamelled subjects.

There are works in Amsterdam (Stedelijk), Chicago, Cologne, Detroit, London (Tate) and New York (M of MA, Guggenheim, Whitney). Nothing beats seeing a Lichtenstein in the flesh so just get to a galley or museum when you can and let his colours wash all over you.