Roy LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
See also : USA USA II The Woman Man and woman
Chronology : 1960-1969 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1990-1999 1996
List of records at auction for Roy Lichtenstein in Wikipedia.
Chronology : 1960-1969 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1990-1999 1996
List of records at auction for Roy Lichtenstein in Wikipedia.
1961 Look Roy, there is Nothing
2011 SOLD 43.2 M$ including premium
In 1961, Roy Lichtenstein is 38. He is interested in art, and his son is interested in Donald Duck. The younger Lichtenstein challenges his father : can he do as well as the pictures of his magazine? It clicked. Roy Lichtenstein invented the pop art, no less.
The idea is original. By recuperating and enlarging ordinary pictures created for feeding the magazines, Roy creates a new artistic language combining graphics and letters, which will entertain the visitors without requiring an effort of interpretation.
Yet Roy's message is subtle. This pioneer will succeed without taking seriously his own art, but it is clear that his themes are in their own right a deep view into the social role of art.
In his first pop artwork, Roy questions the art. Donald Duck is fishing. His rod is bending, and he invites Mickey Mouse : "Look Mickey, I've hooked a big one". Mickey knows that the fish is under water, and in fact there is nothing for him to see. He's right: the hook got attached to the jacket of his friend. This seminal work, 122 x 175 cm, was given in 1990 by the artist to the National Gallery of Art.
The painting for sale by Christie's in New York on November 8, graphite and oil on canvas 121 x 121 cm, was made in the same year, and is also inspired by a magazine picture. We see the eye of a man through a peephole. Obviously puzzled, he states, "I can see the whole room and there's nobody inside." The man denies the existence of the viewer, like Mickey denied the reality of the fish.
This work is estimated $ 35M. It is illustrated in the second position in the article shared by the Wall Street Journal.
I invite you to play the video shared on the web by Christie's.
POST SALE COMMENT
This work was one of the first to offer a new vision of the nature and role of art. Its price, $ 43.2 million including premium, is in line with expectations.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
The idea is original. By recuperating and enlarging ordinary pictures created for feeding the magazines, Roy creates a new artistic language combining graphics and letters, which will entertain the visitors without requiring an effort of interpretation.
Yet Roy's message is subtle. This pioneer will succeed without taking seriously his own art, but it is clear that his themes are in their own right a deep view into the social role of art.
In his first pop artwork, Roy questions the art. Donald Duck is fishing. His rod is bending, and he invites Mickey Mouse : "Look Mickey, I've hooked a big one". Mickey knows that the fish is under water, and in fact there is nothing for him to see. He's right: the hook got attached to the jacket of his friend. This seminal work, 122 x 175 cm, was given in 1990 by the artist to the National Gallery of Art.
The painting for sale by Christie's in New York on November 8, graphite and oil on canvas 121 x 121 cm, was made in the same year, and is also inspired by a magazine picture. We see the eye of a man through a peephole. Obviously puzzled, he states, "I can see the whole room and there's nobody inside." The man denies the existence of the viewer, like Mickey denied the reality of the fish.
This work is estimated $ 35M. It is illustrated in the second position in the article shared by the Wall Street Journal.
I invite you to play the video shared on the web by Christie's.
POST SALE COMMENT
This work was one of the first to offer a new vision of the nature and role of art. Its price, $ 43.2 million including premium, is in line with expectations.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
1962 The Minimalism of Emotion
2015 SOLD for $ 42M including premium
Look Mickey by Roy Lichtenstein in 1961 is the turning point of modern art. The picture is figurative, popular (with Disney's characters) impossible (animals that mimic humans), burlesque, and even animated by its text which assesses what has gone before and what will happen afterwards.
Leo Castelli immediately understands the importance of this artwork. Roy also. The artist rushes into love and war comics, considered as a minor art but enormously appealing to the public. His technique of showing the printing dots in scale across the very large magnification of his art and of keeping the pure colors is clever because it makes the connection between his inspiration and his work.
Roy finds what he is looking for. The source is abundant and the path is unexplored. The designer of the original comics created unknowingly some masterpieces of emotional imaging. For him, the scene was inseparable from the story. By isolating some simple images with or without a phylactery, Roy met the challenge of providing an art altogether major and popular.
On May 12 in New York, Sotheby's sells at lot 15 The Ring (engagement), an oil on canvas 123 x 178 cm painted in 1962 which is one of the largest by this artist at that time. The press release of March 23 announced an estimate in the region of $ 50M.
A man's hand presents the ring to the finger of a woman. That's it. This is the representation of one of the most important rites of passage of our civilization. We will not know anything more of this new couple, but the position of the hands expresses the mutual trust that sublimes such act.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
Leo Castelli immediately understands the importance of this artwork. Roy also. The artist rushes into love and war comics, considered as a minor art but enormously appealing to the public. His technique of showing the printing dots in scale across the very large magnification of his art and of keeping the pure colors is clever because it makes the connection between his inspiration and his work.
Roy finds what he is looking for. The source is abundant and the path is unexplored. The designer of the original comics created unknowingly some masterpieces of emotional imaging. For him, the scene was inseparable from the story. By isolating some simple images with or without a phylactery, Roy met the challenge of providing an art altogether major and popular.
On May 12 in New York, Sotheby's sells at lot 15 The Ring (engagement), an oil on canvas 123 x 178 cm painted in 1962 which is one of the largest by this artist at that time. The press release of March 23 announced an estimate in the region of $ 50M.
A man's hand presents the ring to the finger of a woman. That's it. This is the representation of one of the most important rites of passage of our civilization. We will not know anything more of this new couple, but the position of the hands expresses the mutual trust that sublimes such act.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
1962 Pop Emotions
2019 SOLD for $ 31M including premium
With Pop Art, painting leaves away from the intellectual circles. The emotion offered by the abstract expressionists had been reserved for an elite who accepted to spend some time in looking for an empathy.
The multiplication of images has become a feature of the consumer society. In the magazine, on the poster, in the street, it needs to be both simple and striking for achieving its goal : to sell, even if the product for sale is mediocre.
Roy Lichtenstein's art does not target elites. It speaks to everyone. When they see a picture, people like to relate it to what they already know, to transpose into themselves the feelings expressed by the character.
Roy cuts out in comic books the images that he enlarges up to the size of a work of art. The original strip is not made available, further exciting the imagination of the viewer as to the course of the action. The young woman, alone or with a man, is one of the favorite themes of the artist.
Away from art fashions and deaf to criticism, Roy can afford all the audacities. His early Pop Art works often copy a phylactery from the original image. The following speech by a blonde to a painter takes the strength of a manifesto when it is transposed in large format : "Why, Brad darling. This painting is a masterpiece! My, soon you'll have all of New York clamoring for your work!". This artwork 137 x 137 cm painted in 1962 was sold for $ 165 million in a private transaction in January 2017.
On May 15 in New York, Christie's sells Kiss III, acrylic on canvas 163 x 122 cm also painted in 1962, lot 7 B estimated $ 30M.
Kiss III stages a man and a woman in a loving embrace, without a speech bubble. They are not beautiful and the drawing is too simple : art no longer needs aesthetics. The patterns of dots that create the colors of the skin and of one of the clothes are reminiscent of the screened origin of this image from (or supposed to come from) a popular magazine.
The multiplication of images has become a feature of the consumer society. In the magazine, on the poster, in the street, it needs to be both simple and striking for achieving its goal : to sell, even if the product for sale is mediocre.
Roy Lichtenstein's art does not target elites. It speaks to everyone. When they see a picture, people like to relate it to what they already know, to transpose into themselves the feelings expressed by the character.
Roy cuts out in comic books the images that he enlarges up to the size of a work of art. The original strip is not made available, further exciting the imagination of the viewer as to the course of the action. The young woman, alone or with a man, is one of the favorite themes of the artist.
Away from art fashions and deaf to criticism, Roy can afford all the audacities. His early Pop Art works often copy a phylactery from the original image. The following speech by a blonde to a painter takes the strength of a manifesto when it is transposed in large format : "Why, Brad darling. This painting is a masterpiece! My, soon you'll have all of New York clamoring for your work!". This artwork 137 x 137 cm painted in 1962 was sold for $ 165 million in a private transaction in January 2017.
On May 15 in New York, Christie's sells Kiss III, acrylic on canvas 163 x 122 cm also painted in 1962, lot 7 B estimated $ 30M.
Kiss III stages a man and a woman in a loving embrace, without a speech bubble. They are not beautiful and the drawing is too simple : art no longer needs aesthetics. The patterns of dots that create the colors of the skin and of one of the clothes are reminiscent of the screened origin of this image from (or supposed to come from) a popular magazine.
1963 The Unwanted Contribution of Picasso to Pop Art
2013 SOLD 56 M$ including premium
In 1961, around Leo Castelli, the Abstract Expressionism is already going to saturation. New ideas were required. By exploring the pop art, Lichtenstein and Warhol demonstrated that despite Duchamp, despite the Surrealists, despite the Bauhaus, the modern imaging was still to be created.
Each one in his own way, these two competing artists designed images that the public can understand and love, inspired by consumerism, magazines, posters and comics.
From those early days, Roy Lichtenstein appropriates works of art. He wants to identify this action as a tribute to his predecessors, but his approach is too subtle for believing such a statement.
Picasso expressed deep feelings with a perfectly mastered drawing and adjusted colors. Lichtenstein's genius is to appreciate that Picasso's art is recognizable by the general public, but too complicated to retain. He plagiarizes it, bringing his personal techniques with colors alternately flat and by dots.
Dora Maar is the woman with flowered hat, painted by Picasso in 1939-1940. As Lichtenstein painted her in 1963, she had become pitiful to earn her place in the popular imaging.
The Lichtenstein canvas, 127 x 102 cm, is one of the most illustrative examples of Pop Art. It is for sale by Christie's in New York on May 15 The press release tells that it is expected in excess of $ 30M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result, $ 56M including premium, may seem huge for an appropriation. It reinforces the fact that the pop art of the early 1960s was one of the most important artistic revolutions.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
Each one in his own way, these two competing artists designed images that the public can understand and love, inspired by consumerism, magazines, posters and comics.
From those early days, Roy Lichtenstein appropriates works of art. He wants to identify this action as a tribute to his predecessors, but his approach is too subtle for believing such a statement.
Picasso expressed deep feelings with a perfectly mastered drawing and adjusted colors. Lichtenstein's genius is to appreciate that Picasso's art is recognizable by the general public, but too complicated to retain. He plagiarizes it, bringing his personal techniques with colors alternately flat and by dots.
Dora Maar is the woman with flowered hat, painted by Picasso in 1939-1940. As Lichtenstein painted her in 1963, she had become pitiful to earn her place in the popular imaging.
The Lichtenstein canvas, 127 x 102 cm, is one of the most illustrative examples of Pop Art. It is for sale by Christie's in New York on May 15 The press release tells that it is expected in excess of $ 30M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result, $ 56M including premium, may seem huge for an appropriation. It reinforces the fact that the pop art of the early 1960s was one of the most important artistic revolutions.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
1964 The New Blondes
2015 SOLD for $ 95M including premium
The American pop movement that develops around Castelli in the early 1960s is pushing popular themes into major art. At the same time, the status of women is undergoing profound transformations, along with the debates that will soon change forever the legal aspects of contraception and abortion.
Roy Lichtenstein is clever and subtle. His reuse of pictures from comics associated with his recreation of color in carefully painted patterns similar as printing dots maintains his characters within a fantasy world. His young blondes become an ersatz of the new modern woman. They occupy a dominant position in his art from the first Crying girl of 1963.
On November 9 in New York, Christie's sells Nurse, oil and acrylic on canvas 122 x 122 cm painted in 1964, lot 13A. The press release of October 16 indicates an estimate in the region of $ 80M.
The blonde is nervous : closed fist, open mouth, looking sideways, uncombed hair. It is obvious that something is going wrong for this young woman in a nurse's uniform. She is not pretty with her thin cheeks and big eyes. She is an ordinary woman subjected to intense passions. She has problems just like you and me.
The artist has liberated his scenes from the cells of the comics by removing the texts. He is right: the empathy with the character is strengthened by this mystery that can be closed out by looking into the original comics. The disarray of the nurse is due to a discussion in the next room between the doctor whom she attempted to seduce and her rival who calls her a liar.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Christie's, including voiced sequences with the artist.
The image below is shared by Wikimedia with attribution : By © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Roy Lichtenstein is clever and subtle. His reuse of pictures from comics associated with his recreation of color in carefully painted patterns similar as printing dots maintains his characters within a fantasy world. His young blondes become an ersatz of the new modern woman. They occupy a dominant position in his art from the first Crying girl of 1963.
On November 9 in New York, Christie's sells Nurse, oil and acrylic on canvas 122 x 122 cm painted in 1964, lot 13A. The press release of October 16 indicates an estimate in the region of $ 80M.
The blonde is nervous : closed fist, open mouth, looking sideways, uncombed hair. It is obvious that something is going wrong for this young woman in a nurse's uniform. She is not pretty with her thin cheeks and big eyes. She is an ordinary woman subjected to intense passions. She has problems just like you and me.
The artist has liberated his scenes from the cells of the comics by removing the texts. He is right: the empathy with the character is strengthened by this mystery that can be closed out by looking into the original comics. The disarray of the nurse is due to a discussion in the next room between the doctor whom she attempted to seduce and her rival who calls her a liar.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Christie's, including voiced sequences with the artist.
The image below is shared by Wikimedia with attribution : By © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
1964 The Sleeping Girl by Roy Lichtenstein
2012 SOLD 45 M$ including premium
The sleeping girl of Roy Lichtenstein is not a Marie-Thérèse Walter. She is neither nice nor attractive: she sleeps.
She is not a Marilyn or a Liz by Warhol. She is not famous, and has perhaps never existed anywhere but in the imagination of a comic book writer.
Quite simply, this young woman painted in 1964 on a canvas 91 x 91 cm is remarkably typical of the sixties, with her blonde hair too thick to be elegant.
She does not dream. Lichtenstein does not attribute her any thought, any boxed speech, unlike Ohhh Alright, 90 x 96 cm, made in the same year and sold $ 42.5 million including premium at Christie's on November 9, 2010.
With her simple composition, the hair treated in flat vivid monochrome and the facial skin made in dots like a printed poster, the sleeping girl has all the qualities we love in an early Lichtenstein. His art was an immediate success. Purchased the year of its creation, the painting had never reappeared on the market.
It is estimated $ 30M, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on May 9. Here is the link to the page where Sotheby's announces the sale.
POST SALE COMMENT
The speechless series of heads of young women by Lichtenstein is iconic. This painting was sold $ 45M including premium.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
She is not a Marilyn or a Liz by Warhol. She is not famous, and has perhaps never existed anywhere but in the imagination of a comic book writer.
Quite simply, this young woman painted in 1964 on a canvas 91 x 91 cm is remarkably typical of the sixties, with her blonde hair too thick to be elegant.
She does not dream. Lichtenstein does not attribute her any thought, any boxed speech, unlike Ohhh Alright, 90 x 96 cm, made in the same year and sold $ 42.5 million including premium at Christie's on November 9, 2010.
With her simple composition, the hair treated in flat vivid monochrome and the facial skin made in dots like a printed poster, the sleeping girl has all the qualities we love in an early Lichtenstein. His art was an immediate success. Purchased the year of its creation, the painting had never reappeared on the market.
It is estimated $ 30M, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on May 9. Here is the link to the page where Sotheby's announces the sale.
POST SALE COMMENT
The speechless series of heads of young women by Lichtenstein is iconic. This painting was sold $ 45M including premium.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
1964 Oooh... Lichtenstein...
2010 SOLD 42.6 M$ including premium
Pop art was born of the visions of Johns, Warhol, Lichtenstein and others who sought and found fame by showing contemporary objects and subjects and by refusing all previous pictorial traditions.
Roy Lichtenstein was following two different practices, as discussed below.
The usual object is shown in the rough and out of context by deleting all references to the brand required by the consumers, unlike Warhol's. These paintings with clear lines (a ball of string, for example) are a bit austere.
A glass of ice cream, oil on canvas done in 1962, 165 x 82 cm, is estimated $ 12M, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 9. It is illustrated in the release shared by Artdaily.
The other theme pushed his glory, helping to show to the public the possibility of a different art: the use of pictures from romance comics.
So "In the car", 1963, 76 x 102 cm, shows a couple. The driving man looks at his negligent companion with an air of annoyance, but they do not speak. This artwork was sold for $ 16.2 million including premium on November 8, 2005 by Christie's.
The painting of 1964, 90 x 96 cm, for sale by Christie's on November 10 in New York, is more sensational: the redhead girl grabs her phone (period!) with both hands saying "OHHH... ALRIGHT... " in a speech bubble!
This work is illustrated in the article shared by the Wall Street Journal, which tells us that Christie's won the confidence of the wealthy Mr. Wynn to get on that lot the highest price ever recorded on a work by Lichtenstein. The catalog does not publish an estimate.
POST SALE COMMENTS
1
This is the first of two expected results for Lichtenstein in the above article: $ 14M including premium for Ice Cream Soda at Sotheby's. That is good, because this work seemed to me rather hard to sell. The following tomorrow.
2
Christie's had taken a big risk on this transaction.
Financial risk by organizing a third party guarantee. Risk in the assessment of this lot for a price never achieved for a work of Lichtenstein. Risk in its credibility to its top customers by announcing that the sale had been entrusted by one of the top collectors, Steve Wynn.
The press had discussed about $ 40M. The lot was sold for $ 42.6 million including premium. We can not know what was the role of the financial package in this result. Whatever. By passing this transaction, Christie's has just brilliantly demonstrated that the seller crisis of 2009 is a fact of the past.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
Roy Lichtenstein was following two different practices, as discussed below.
The usual object is shown in the rough and out of context by deleting all references to the brand required by the consumers, unlike Warhol's. These paintings with clear lines (a ball of string, for example) are a bit austere.
A glass of ice cream, oil on canvas done in 1962, 165 x 82 cm, is estimated $ 12M, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 9. It is illustrated in the release shared by Artdaily.
The other theme pushed his glory, helping to show to the public the possibility of a different art: the use of pictures from romance comics.
So "In the car", 1963, 76 x 102 cm, shows a couple. The driving man looks at his negligent companion with an air of annoyance, but they do not speak. This artwork was sold for $ 16.2 million including premium on November 8, 2005 by Christie's.
The painting of 1964, 90 x 96 cm, for sale by Christie's on November 10 in New York, is more sensational: the redhead girl grabs her phone (period!) with both hands saying "OHHH... ALRIGHT... " in a speech bubble!
This work is illustrated in the article shared by the Wall Street Journal, which tells us that Christie's won the confidence of the wealthy Mr. Wynn to get on that lot the highest price ever recorded on a work by Lichtenstein. The catalog does not publish an estimate.
POST SALE COMMENTS
1
This is the first of two expected results for Lichtenstein in the above article: $ 14M including premium for Ice Cream Soda at Sotheby's. That is good, because this work seemed to me rather hard to sell. The following tomorrow.
2
Christie's had taken a big risk on this transaction.
Financial risk by organizing a third party guarantee. Risk in the assessment of this lot for a price never achieved for a work of Lichtenstein. Risk in its credibility to its top customers by announcing that the sale had been entrusted by one of the top collectors, Steve Wynn.
The press had discussed about $ 40M. The lot was sold for $ 42.6 million including premium. We can not know what was the role of the financial package in this result. Whatever. By passing this transaction, Christie's has just brilliantly demonstrated that the seller crisis of 2009 is a fact of the past.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
1965 Quantum Painting
2017 SOLD for $ 28M including premium
Roy Lichtenstein questions the fundamental principles of painting by appropriating images from the comics, coloring large surfaces on his canvases with Ben-day dots and transforming a masterpiece into a reference for derision.
Roy finds in the comics the most varied inspiration. A book entitled The painter was published in October 1964 : a mad artist annihilates his own work with a few brush strokes. The image shows dripping, single drops and even the fraying when the paint becomes rarer on the bristles of the brush at the end of the raging gesture.
Roy uses this theme one year later while removing the text that expressed the artist's nightmare. His first painting simply titled Brushstroke is close to the original drawing with hand and brush in the foreground. He goes further : is a painting anything else than a set of brush strokes on a surface ? In the rest of his series he removes the hand and the brush, leaving alone in the image two stacked strokes.
On May 17 in New York, Christie's sells Red and White Brushstrokes, a canvas 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965, lot 57 B estimated $ 25M. The two wide stripes reproducing beside their friction the avatars of the original gesture are horizontal in a slightly rising direction. It is probably not by chance that the whole image resembles a damaged flowing flag.
Going much deeper than the author of the comics Roy reaches the quantum element of painting. He moves in the same line as Jasper Johns or Frank Stella for whom the theme is less important than the process for building the artwork.
By transforming his Brushstrokes into sculptures three decades later Roy completes this ingenious journey in the mockery of painting. After all, if we look for a parallel in other artistic actions, is cinema anything else than a projection of light through a scrolling sequence of colored filters ?
Roy finds in the comics the most varied inspiration. A book entitled The painter was published in October 1964 : a mad artist annihilates his own work with a few brush strokes. The image shows dripping, single drops and even the fraying when the paint becomes rarer on the bristles of the brush at the end of the raging gesture.
Roy uses this theme one year later while removing the text that expressed the artist's nightmare. His first painting simply titled Brushstroke is close to the original drawing with hand and brush in the foreground. He goes further : is a painting anything else than a set of brush strokes on a surface ? In the rest of his series he removes the hand and the brush, leaving alone in the image two stacked strokes.
On May 17 in New York, Christie's sells Red and White Brushstrokes, a canvas 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965, lot 57 B estimated $ 25M. The two wide stripes reproducing beside their friction the avatars of the original gesture are horizontal in a slightly rising direction. It is probably not by chance that the whole image resembles a damaged flowing flag.
Going much deeper than the author of the comics Roy reaches the quantum element of painting. He moves in the same line as Jasper Johns or Frank Stella for whom the theme is less important than the process for building the artwork.
By transforming his Brushstrokes into sculptures three decades later Roy completes this ingenious journey in the mockery of painting. After all, if we look for a parallel in other artistic actions, is cinema anything else than a projection of light through a scrolling sequence of colored filters ?
1965 The Basics of Painting
2020 SOLD for $ 25.4M including premium
The very basics of painting can become a pictorial work in their own right. Roy Lichtenstein is a great questioner of the deep meaning, let's say rather of a possible meaning, of art.
His Brushstrokes series is made up of fifteen oil and acrylic works on canvas executed in 1965 and 1966. One or more brushstrokes have left scars of white, red, yellow or green paint disproportionately magnified over a blue background built with his signature Ben-Day dots.
Any painter would want their brush stroke to be perfect. Roy shows that it is not. Defects include furrows, fringes, transparencies, drips and spots.
Lichtenstein's Brushstrokes do not include any direct narrative. This opaque paint applied with great energy can however hide another figure. In the comic book that inspired Roy, a furious artist cancels with a red cross a portrait he had just painted.
With his usual humor close to self-mockery, Roy does not omit to state that the meticulous execution of his own painting has nothing to do with this violent trace. No one is inspecting a painting in such a magnification. The doubt then comes on the constitution of the angles, by a rotation of the wrist or by the resumption of a new stroke.
Red and White Brushstrokes forms a sort of flag with two brush strokes and their drips that look like handles, perhaps as a wink for Jasper Johns. This opus 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965 was sold for $ 28M including premium by Christie's on May 17, 2017.
White Brushstroke I shows three overlapping segments that make up a sort of Z or N with rounded corners. This 122 x 142 cm painting is one of the very first in the series. It is estimated $ 20M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
His Brushstrokes series is made up of fifteen oil and acrylic works on canvas executed in 1965 and 1966. One or more brushstrokes have left scars of white, red, yellow or green paint disproportionately magnified over a blue background built with his signature Ben-Day dots.
Any painter would want their brush stroke to be perfect. Roy shows that it is not. Defects include furrows, fringes, transparencies, drips and spots.
Lichtenstein's Brushstrokes do not include any direct narrative. This opaque paint applied with great energy can however hide another figure. In the comic book that inspired Roy, a furious artist cancels with a red cross a portrait he had just painted.
With his usual humor close to self-mockery, Roy does not omit to state that the meticulous execution of his own painting has nothing to do with this violent trace. No one is inspecting a painting in such a magnification. The doubt then comes on the constitution of the angles, by a rotation of the wrist or by the resumption of a new stroke.
Red and White Brushstrokes forms a sort of flag with two brush strokes and their drips that look like handles, perhaps as a wink for Jasper Johns. This opus 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965 was sold for $ 28M including premium by Christie's on May 17, 2017.
White Brushstroke I shows three overlapping segments that make up a sort of Z or N with rounded corners. This 122 x 142 cm painting is one of the very first in the series. It is estimated $ 20M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1995 Nude with Red Shirt by Lichtenstein
2012 SOLD for $ 28M including premium by Christie's
Link to catalogue.
1996 A Nice Blonde with the Old Roy
2013 SOLD 31.5 M$ including premium
In 1993, when Roy Lichtenstein focuses on the female nude, he actually starts two different lines of images. In one of them, the woman is nude in her apartment, busy in her daily activities. The other set shows her in bust, centered in a bold close-up composition where the frame is cutting hair, arms and lower breast.
Same as Munch, Lichtenstein is a great picture maker who prepares prints. Prints from his later career, after almost twenty years, regularly appear on the market. A printed copy of the 1994 nude with blue hair, 130 x 80 cm, was sold for $ 320K including premium by Christie's on October 30, 2013.
The paintings on this theme are still rare at auction. A Seductive Girl painted on canvas in 1996, 127 x 183 cm, is estimated $ 22M , for sale by Christie's in New York on November 12.
This pretty blonde on her bed is a sister of the young women painted by Roy thirty years earlier after copying images in the comic books. Her texture is also composed of colored dots more or less densely arranged for bringing the perspective.
Unlike her former friends, she is naked. As usual with Roy, this modern young woman establishes a communication with the viewer, but for once she is not troubled but troubling. She gently seduces the old Roy.
This creative impulse was unfortunately stopped in the following year by the sudden death of Roy, aged 74.
POST SALE COMMENT
This great example of creativity at the end of Lichtenstein's career was sold for $ 31.5 million including premium.
Same as Munch, Lichtenstein is a great picture maker who prepares prints. Prints from his later career, after almost twenty years, regularly appear on the market. A printed copy of the 1994 nude with blue hair, 130 x 80 cm, was sold for $ 320K including premium by Christie's on October 30, 2013.
The paintings on this theme are still rare at auction. A Seductive Girl painted on canvas in 1996, 127 x 183 cm, is estimated $ 22M , for sale by Christie's in New York on November 12.
This pretty blonde on her bed is a sister of the young women painted by Roy thirty years earlier after copying images in the comic books. Her texture is also composed of colored dots more or less densely arranged for bringing the perspective.
Unlike her former friends, she is naked. As usual with Roy, this modern young woman establishes a communication with the viewer, but for once she is not troubled but troubling. She gently seduces the old Roy.
This creative impulse was unfortunately stopped in the following year by the sudden death of Roy, aged 74.
POST SALE COMMENT
This great example of creativity at the end of Lichtenstein's career was sold for $ 31.5 million including premium.
