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Digitized by the Internet Archive

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http://archive.org/details/roylichOOwald

Roy Lichtenstein

by Diane Waldman

&UGGENHEIM

MUSEUM

! |993 i he Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation

New York

ISBN 0-89207-108-7 (hardcover)

ISBN 0-89207 109- 5 softi over)

Printed in ( lei man) h\ < lantz

Roy Lichtenstein

Solomon K. Guggenheim Museum, New York

( >, tober 8, 1993 fanuarj 16, 1994

I he Museum of Contemporary Art, 1 os Angeles January >" April V 1994

Published U the Guggenheim Museum.

1071 I i!( It Avenue. New York, New York 10128

1 1. ml, ovei edition distributed b\

Rjzzoli International Publications, In<

300 Park Avenue South. New York, New York 10010

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts M.i\ 26 September 5, 1994

I Ins exhibition has been supported m p.irt by .i generous grant from I In. Owen ( heatham Foundation Adilition.il support has been provided by I ufthansa ( lei man \irlines.

I rontispie< e

Robert Mapplethorpe, Roy Lichtenstein, 1985

Gelatin-silver print. 61 x 50.8 cm (2-4 \ 20 inches)

I roni 1 1 »ver:

Detail ol Km Lichtenstein, Gofoi Baroque, 1979

(fig. U

Ko Li. htenstein, Self-Portrait, 1978 (fig. 187).

Contents

\u 1

19 45 91

Preface Acknowledgments

1 I he Early Yens

2 ( In ho into [cons I arly Pop Pictures

3 i omi( Strips and Advertising Im i

4 War Comics, 1962 64

5 Girls, 1963 (^

6 Landscapes, 1964

7 Brushstrokes, L965 66 s Art Deco and Modern, 1966-70

9 Mirrors. 1969 72, and I nl iblatures, l(>7l 76

10 still I ifes, 1972-76

11 Futurism, Surrealism, and German Expressionism, 1974 so

12 11k- 1980s

13 Interiors, L991 93

I 4 Sculpture, 1965 93

15 Murals. 1964 93

( hi< '

Bibliography

Index of Reproductions

l »9 1 V 165

isi 205

261 »99

n i

-.1 1

377

Lenders to the Exhibition

Betty Asher, Beverly Hills, California

Richard Brown Baker Irving Blum, New York rhe Eli and Edythe L. Broad Collection Jean-Christophe Castelli Leo Castelli

Douglas S. Cramer. Los Angeles Stefan T. Edlis Collection Larry Gagosian, New York David Geffen Collection Helman Collection, New York Ronnie and Samuel Heyman, New York Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington. D.C. Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen,

Diisseldorf David Lichtenstein Mitchell Lichtenstein Gordon Locksley and George T. Shea McCrory Collection, New York Steve Martin

Stephen Mazoh and Co., Inc. The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York Robert and Jane MeyerhofF, Phoenix,

Maryland Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth,

Texas Museum Ludwig, Cologne Museum moderner Kunst, SammJung Ludwig, Vienna

The Museum of Modern Art, New York The Patsy R. .md Raymond D.

Nfasher Collection, Dallas, Texas National Gallery of Art,

Washington, D.C. Mr. and Mrs. S. I. New house, Jr. Michael and Judy Ovitz Elizabeth and Michael Rea. Connecticut Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University,

Waltham, Massachusetts Robert and Jane Rosenhlum, New York I )enise and Andrew Saul Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,

Edinburgh Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Shoenberg Sonnabend Collection Gian Enzo Sperone, New York Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Stedehjk Museum, Amsterdam Stephen and Nan Swid Collection.

New York Tate Gallery, London Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Marcia Simon Weisman Trust Whitney Museum of American Art.

New York Mr. and Mrs. Baglcv Wright Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven Private collections

Project Team

Curatcd by Diane Waldman,

Deputy Director and Senior Curator

Clare Bell, Assistant Curator Elizabeth Richebourg Rea,

Consultant and Researcher Cassandra Lozano Julia Blaut, Research Assistant Susan Joan Schenk, Research Assistant Tracey Bashkoff, Curatorial Assistant

Linda Thacher, Exhibitions Registrar Pamela L. Myers, Administrator for

Exhibitions and Programming Cara Galowitz, Manager, Graphic Design

Services Michelle Martino, Graphic Designei David Heald. Manager. Photographic

Services Lee Ewing, Photographer Samar Qandil, Photography Coordinator Laura Antonovv, Senior Museum

Technician. Lighting Christine Scinlli, Museum Technician.

Lighting and Planning Scott Wixon, Manager of Installation and

Collection Services Peter Read, Jr.. Manager. Fabrication

Services Anibal Gonzalez-Rivera. Manager.

Collection Services Joseph Adams. Senior Museum

Technician Peter Costa. Senior Museum Technical! David Veater, Senior Museum Technician Timothy Ross. Technical Specialist John Brayshaw, Museum Technician/Carpenter I ),\ id Johnson. Museum Technician/Carpenter Robert Attanasio, Museum Technician Lisette Baron Adams. Museum

Technician James Cullinane, Museum Technician

Jocelyn Groom. Museum fa hnician,

Administration [osh Neretm. Museum

Technician Carpenter William Smith, Museum Technician Dennis Vermullen. Museum Technician Guy Walker, Museum Technician Carol Strmgan. Associate Conservator Amy Husten. Manager of Budget

and Planning James di Pasquale Robert McKeever Heather Ramsdell Karne Adamany. Curatorial Intern Sarah Ellen Cunningham,

Curatorial Intern Blythe Kingston, Curatorial Intern Michelle Mahonev. Curatorial Intern James Rondeau, Curatorial Intern Ivy Sta. lglesia. Curatorial Intern Michelle Smigallia. Curatorial Intern

Gltdl0£HC

Anthom ( alnek. Managing Editor Elizabeth Lew. Production Editoi Stephen Robert Frankel. Project Editor Laura Morns, Assistant Editor Jennifer Knox, Editorial r\ssistant Shelly Lee

Design by Takaaki Matsumoto of M Plus M Inc.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Honorary Trustees in Perpetuity Solomon R. Guggenheim Justin K. Thannhauser Peggy Guggenheim

President

Peter Law son-Johnston

I rice-Presidents

The Right Honorable Earl Castle Stewart Wendy L-J. McNeil Robert M. Gardiner

Directoi Thomas Krens

Trustees

The Right Honorable Earl Castle Stewart

Mary Sharp Cronson

Elaine Dannheisser

Miehel David- Weil]

Carlo I )e Benedetti

The Honorable Gianni De Michelis

Robm Chandler Duke

Robert M. Gardiner

Jacques Hachuel Moreno

Ramer Heubach

Barbara Jonas

Thomas Krens

Peter Law son-Johnston

Samuel J. LeFrak

Peter B. Lewis

Wendy L-J. McNeil

Edward H. Meyer

Ronald C). Perelman

Michael M. Rea

Heinz Ruhnau

Denise Saul

James B. Sherwood

Raja Sidawi

Seymour Slive

Peter W Stroh

Stephen C. Swid

Rawleigh Warner, Jr.

Jiirgen Weber

Michael F. Wettac h

Donald M. Wilson

William T Ylvisaker

Honorary Trustee

Mme Claude Pompidou

Trusta , Ex ( Officio

Luigi Mosehen

Director Emeritus

Thomas M. Messcr

Preface As one of the artists who invented Pop art in the 1960s, R<>\ I ichtenstein shocked the

art world with the new visual syntax of his paintings and sculptures. Merging popular imagery and "high art," and borrowing the techniques oi advertising and the comics, he established Ins own unique style and attitude. Representing a composite portrait of American consumer culture, his oeuvre has exerted .1 worldwide influence for more than three decades.

Lichtenstem and the Guggenheim Museum have a long-standing relationship. The Guggenheim mounted its first retrospective exhibition devoted to the works of this most enduring and important American artist in 1969; now, nearly twenty five years later, we present our second Lichtenstein retrospective. In addition, his paintings, sculptures, .md works on paper figure proudly in our permanent collection. In bringing together works spanning I ichtenstein's entire career, this book and exhibition make evident his achievement.

I express mv sincere appreciation to the artist for his generous mk\ enthusiastic help in this project. To Diane Waldman, Deputy Director and Senior Curator, whose curatorial expertise and knowledge of Lichtenstein's work have brought this presentation and publication to fruition with sensitivity and intelligence, 1 am especially thankful.

Finally, it is to the individuals and foundations who have generously given then financial support that 1 owe a great debt of -latitude. We are especially thankful to I eo Castelli for his aid to the project. Acknowledgment is also due to The Owen Cheatham Foundation; Stephen and Nan Sw.d: Stephen Ma/oh and Co., Inc.; and The Merrill ( ! and Emita E. Hastings Foundation; their contributions and assistance have been vital to the success of this exhibition. My appreciation is also extended to I uftliansa German Airlines for its continuing support of the Guggenheim and all its endeavors,

Thomas Krens Director

Acknowledgments It has been a rare privilege to organize this second retrospective of Roy Lichtenstein's

paintings and sculptures. I first had the pleasure of presenting his work to audiences at the

Guggenheim Museum in 1969. It would have been impossible then as it would be now to achieve such an undertaking without the generous cooperation of the artist himself. I am grateful for the unwavering support that he has given me in this project. Over the years, he has shared his insights and reminiscences And provided indispensable information on his influences, motivations, and details about his work. His keen perception and unfailing humor have added greatly to our diseussions. That same boundless spirit of interaction and exchange has enabled Lichtenstein to produce a body of work whose originality of expression and style are appreciated worldwide. Today, nearly twenty-five years after his first retrospective at this museum, he continues to have an enormous impact on the art of our time.

As I traced the development of his oeuvre since the late l(J(><>s, it was evident that new inquiries had to be made 111 locating the whereabouts of many key works from different periods. I am especially grateful to Elizabeth Richebourg Rca tor her tireless and painstaking contributions in this and other areas of research and documentation.

New information on Lichtenstein's work was brought to my attention by many colleagues, through personal conversations as well as published and unpublished materials. My gratitude is extended to those who generously volunteered their findings and recollections, including Richard Bellamy; Irving Blum; James Corcoran; Constance Glenn; James Goodman; Joseph Helman; Tim Hunt, Director of The Warhol Foundation; Ivan Karp; Margo Leavin; Dorothy Lichtenstein; James Mayor; Lucy Mitchell-Innes, Senior Vice-President of Contemporary Paintings at Sotheby's, New York; George Segal; Daniel Templon; Phyllis Tuchman; Diane Upright, Vice-President of Contemporary Art at Christie's, New York, and her staff; and Leslie Waddington. I would also like to thank Curly Grogan for his advice and support. To the staff members at the numerous libraries, universities, and museums that we contacted tor essential bibliographic information and details of Lichtenstein's exhibition history, 1 am also most grateful.

This exhibition and publication could not have been accomplished without the help of Lichtenstein's studio assistants. A deep debt of thanks is extended to Cassandra Lozano for her enormous help on so many aspects of both projects, and for her assistance in facilitating the use of the artist's archives by members of the Guggenheim Museum's stall I am sincerely grateful to James di Pasquale, Shelly Lee. Robert McKeever, and Heather Ramsdell for their invaluable participation in the planning and implementation of the show and publication.

My thanks are due especially to Leo Castelli and the staff of his gallery, in particular Susan Brundage, Director, and Patty Brundage, Associate Director, for providing crucial information about Lichtenstein's paintings and sculpture. To Larry Gagosian, Melissa McGrath, Robert Pincus-Witten, and others at the Gagosian Gallery working on the Roy Lichtenstein catalogue raisonne, I wish to extend my gratitude for supplying us with much-needed data as well as a range of important materials.

An exhibition of this magnitude could never be achieved without the assistance of the entire staff of the Guggenheim Museum. I am deeply indebted to Clare Bell, Assistant Curator, who managed every phase of the project, contributed to the research, and wrote

the chronology. My gratitude also goes to Tracey Bashkoff, ( uratorial Assistant; Julia Blaut, Research Assistant, who compiled the bibliography; and Susan Joan Schenk, Research Assistant. In addition, I would like to thank the dedicated interns who have volunteered their services on the project over the course of several years: Karrie Ad. mum, Sarah Ellen Cunningham, Blythe Kingston, Michelle Mahoney, James Rondeau. K\ Sta. Iglesia, and Michelle Sinigallia.

Among those most involved with the presentation were 1 inda Thacher, Exhibitions Registrar, who coordinated the intricate details of transportation foi works m the exhibition; Pamela Myers, Administrator for Exhibitions .\\k\ Programming, who oversaw all technical aspects of the installation and who. with the help oi Scott Wixon, Manager of Installation and Collection Services, negotiated the complex details of bringing Lichtenstcms larger works into the museum and installing them on the ramps and town galleries; and Carol Strmgari. Associate ( ouservator, whose expertise was invaluable. To those staff members in the areas of Fabrication. Lighting. Collection Services, and Design who also gave their tune and energy to the project. I am most grateful.

A monograph of this scope could not have been accomplished without the talents o\ Anthony Calnek, Managing Editor, who supervised evei \ asp< Ct ol its publication, mu\ Stephen Robert Frankel, Editor of the monograph, whose critical comments, editing, and advice were indispensable to m\ essay. My deep appreciation to rakaaki Matsumoto ol M Plus M Inc. for designing the book. 1 would also like to extend a sincere note ot gratitude to the other members of the Publii ations Department: Elizabeth 1 evy, Production Editor, who coordinated production of the book; and 1 aura Morns. Assistant Editor, and Jennifer Knox, Editorial Assistant, for their expertise on the project.

Others on the Guggenheim's staff who have worked diligently in helping to realize this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue include Amy Husten, Manager of Budget and Planning; Glory Jones, Public Affairs Officer; Ward Jackson, Archivist; Son,.. Bay, Librarian; Tara Massarskv, Assistant Librarian; Stuart Gerstein, Director of Wholesale and Retail Operations; and Susan Landesmann, Production Assistant.

The names of lenders to the exhibition appear in the catalogue (except those who

wished to remain anonymous). I thank them wholeheartedl) for enabling us to

bring together many of I achtenstcins most important paintings and sculptures; without

their generosity and enthusiastic assistance, this exhibition would not be possible.

Diane Waldman

Deputy Directot ."/</ Seniot Curato\

? I

Chapter 1

The Early Years

I. Roy Liechtenstein, Washington Crossing lite Delaware /, ca 1951 < >il Oil canvas,

crion

,op 2. Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851 Oil oil canvas, 387 5 x 644 7 cm (149 x 255 inches). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, Gift ofjohn Stewart Kennedy, 1897

bottom 3. Larry Rivers, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1953 Oil, graphite, and charcoal on Unen. 212.4x283.5 cm (83 Ixlll inches) Hie Museum of Modern Art. New York Given inonymousl)

One of the most challenging decades in the history of twentieth i entury rVmei u an art began in the early 1960s with the inception of the Pop art movement. In February 1962, at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. K.n Lichtenstein exhibited his first series oi paintings based on comic strips and advertising images of consumer goods. By/ 1963, he and other artists of his generation such as Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Claes ( )ldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, George Segal, and Andy Warhol, many ol whom were working independently, had turned to the common object, popular culture, or the mass media as the underlying theme of their paintings and sculpture, and effectively brought to .\n end the long reign of Abstract Expressionism. In a seminal interview in ARTnewi in 1963, Lichtenstein remarked to critic Gene Swenson that his ambition was to make a painting that was so ••despicable" that no one would hang it. He noted that -everybody was hanging everything. It was almost a< ( eptable to lung a dripping paint rag, everybodx was accustomed to this. The one thing everyone hated was commercial art." In the interview. Lichtenstein stated that his art— and Pop art in general— was concerned with the world, and that "art since Cezanne has become extremely romantic and unrealistic, feeding on art; it is Utopian. It has had less and less to do with the world, it looks inward." Although I ichtenstein maintained that his was not ., i riti< al VOi< e, he declared that he was "anti-contemplative, anti-nuance, anti-gettmg-away-from-the- tyranny-of-the-rectangle. anti-movement and -light, anti-mystery, anti pain. -quality, anti- Zen, and and- all of those brilliant ideas of preceding movements which every

understands so thoroughly"'

In the late 1950s, Abstract Expressionism completely dominated the New York avant- garde, had spread throughout the United States, and was gaining converts in Europe. Young "action painters" Hocked to Lenth Street in Manhattan, then a hub tor experimental art. The Club, an important forum for New York School artists from I'M" to 1962, located on Eighth Street, and the Cedar Bar on University Place were among the landmarks that any ambitious young artist knew about or would want to frequ< ril Heated debates raged on at the Club oxer issues of concern to New York School artists, but by the late 1950s abstract painting had largely exhausted itself and been repla. ed by a mannerist style without rage or grace. Few could emulate Jackson Polio, I Barnett Newman or Clyfford Still, but there were legions of embryonic Willem de Koonings who content to follow in his wake, blatantly imitated his every gesture. I he shelter that he provided was as awesome as it was deceptive, and it gave the New York art world a

collective hangover. .

1„ 1952 the influential critic Harold Rosenberg had described Action Painting in the Mowing manner: "Ifa painting is an action, the sketch is one action, the pamtmg that follows ,; another. What was to go on the canvas." he pro, [aimed, "was no, ., picture but ,„ event " Rosenberg also believed that the "new painting has broken down . distinction between art and life."5 Rosenberg's commitment to action and event found a

remarkable parallel in the attitudes and philosophy ofRauschenberg, , tnfluenced In

the chance theor.es of the influential composer John « ,ge, decided to act ,,, the gap between art and life. (Rauschenberg became friendly with Cage in 1952 at Black Mountain College in North Carol,,,,/) In a statement written lor the catalogue ol v- „ a,,,,,,, ,„ exhibition at the Museum ofModern An ,„ 1959, Rauschenberg wrote.

Chapter 1: The Early Years

4. Marcel Duchamp. Bicycle Wheel, 1913 Original lost; lixth version Gallcria

od md metal numbei eighi ol m edition of eighl i and numbered replicas, 12 inchi Indiana University An

,-itt of Mrs WiUiam * onroj

Am incentive to paint is as good as any other There is no poo. subject. Painting is

aways strongest when in spite of com] tion, color, etc. it appears as a .... t, or an

inevltability, „ opposed to .. souvenir or arrangement. Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. .1 try to ac. .., that gap between the two.) A pair ol socks , „o less suitable to make a painting with than wood, nails, turpentine, oil and fabric. A canvas is never empty. I„ 1951-52 Rauschenberg made a series of Black Paintings, in many of which he combined painting and newsprint. In IOS2-53. he produced his Elemental Sculptures, , memorable group of boxed found objects, which were shown at the Stable Callers m the mtumn of 1953. He also began to attach three-dimensional objects to his canvases; by 1955 he had created such epic combine paintings as Bed (fig. 14). Hymnal, and Rebus, some of the images of which were prototypes for images that appeared a few years later m several of Warhol's and Lichtenstein's early works. Rebus includes a double page ol comic strips front a Sunday newspaper among its evocations of urban life, and Hymnal features a Manhattan telephone directory (minus us cover) and an F.B.I, "most wanted man poster. Rauschenberg and [ohns, who first met in the winter of 1953-54, were profoundly important to the development of Pop art because they celebrated mass culture by presenting some of us most cherished artifacts in a line-arts context. For example, Rauschenberg incorporated portions of newspaper comas pages in his works throughout 1954-SS and Coca-Cola bottles in some of lus combines, such as Coca Cola Plan, 1958, ,nd |ohns replicated Ballantine Ale cans in his Painted Bronze (Ale Cans) (fig. 5), I960. (In 1958 Johns also used a comic-Strip image, basing the central figure of his painting Alley- Oop on Vincent Hamlin's 1931 strip "Alley-Oop") Both Rauschenberg and Johns renewed a dialogue begun bv Marcel Duchamp in 1913, when the eminent Dadaist mounted a bicycle wheel on a painted wooden stool (fig. 4). In presenting these and other found objects, such as the notorious urinal that he had signed "R. Mutt" and entitled Fountain (fig. 6), 1917. as works of art. Duchamp called into question the nature of the art object w.thrn the larger issue of the meaning of art itself. In reinterpreting Duchamp. both Rauschenberg and Johns transformed common objects into uncommon works of art.

Lichtenstein himself was a late convert to Abstract Expressionism. He began making paintings m this mode in 1957 and did not abandon the style until 196(1. It was a remarkably late date to become an Expressionist, as the high point of the movement had long since passed. From Lichtenstein's point of view, however. Abstract Expressionism was the only viable alternative in the 1950s. Like most artists living on the fringe of a movement, he avidly followed its latest developments from afar— specifically, Ohio, where he was living and working, reading ARTnews and other magazines devoted to the paintings and sculpture of the New York School. He also made several trips to New York, where, at galleries such as Charles Egan's and Betty Parsons's, he could see the Abstract Expressionists' work firsthand. In June 1959. he exhibited some of his Abstract Expressfonist paintings at the Condon Riley Gallery in New York. These canvases express a self-conscious styhzation that was surely unintentional and that now. in retrospect, seems to be a link between his otherwise dissimilar paintings of Americana of 1949-51, his Cubist and Abstract Expressionist phases, and his Pop paintings of the earlv 1960s. In 196(1. he made some paintings in which he used torn bedsheets to apply the paint.

top 5. jasper Johns, Painted Bronze {Ah- Cms). I960 Painted bronze, 14 x 20.3 X 12 I cm (5 14x8x4 Ya inches). Museum Ludwig, * ologne

,.,.«,,„ 6. Marcel Duchamp, Fountain. 1917 Original lost; $e< I version Sidney

[anis Gallery. Nev York 1951 Pveadymade porcelain urinal. 61 cm (24 inchi ( ourtesj Sidney [anis Gallery, New York

producing drips th.it resemble cascading ribbons of color (see fig. I 3) In other paintings from this period, areas of bare canvas are complemented by painted areas, or certain brushstrokes and colors are used only m specific areas of .1 canvas. Superficially, the paintings resemble the Abstract Expressionist idiom in that thc\ h ature many of the movement's mannerisms; however, there is a deliberation about even the most painterly of these canvases that separates them from the tot.il abandonment thai ( haia< terizes the best work of the Abstract Expressionists.

Lichtenstem understood many of the fundamental issues invoked in Abstract Expressionism, but he resisted its metaphysical go.ils and its heroi< posture. An art oi compelling inner necessity m which intuition, randomness, and spontaneity pl.i\ a prominent role is a poor match for an artist more temperamentally suited to making pictures than creating events. 1 lchtenstem found his inspiration not m the blank canvas 01 through action, not in the unconscious mind, but in the world around him. Although many artists of the New York School had been, in the early stages of their development, devoted advocates of Cubism, they had abandoned it for Surrealism sev( 1 ll years before they came into their own. This was due. in part, to the presence in New York of main ol the European Surrealists— Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Yves L.ngnv, and othcrs — vv}10 haa fled Europe tor the United States during the Nazi occupation. Lichtenstem s continuing dependence on Synthetic Cubism undermined his ability to adapt to Abstract Expressionism, since the latter movement was founded, in sonic measure. on a rejection of European art in order to create .111 authentically American art. Thus, as Abstract Expressionist paintings. I ichtenstem's canvases seem studied, but they clearly show two important, lasting features of his approach to painting: an ..biding interest in form and an inclination to conceptualize his subject matter.

Lichtenstem was m the process of developing his own method ol painting in thi manner of the Abstract Expressionists when he suddenly changed direction again. As he mentioned in an interview with Bruce Glaser in I'"''1

I began putting hidden comic images into those paintings, such as MkL-n Mouse. I >onald Du« k and Bugs Bunny At the same time I was drawing little Mickey Mouses and things tor ,m children, -.ml working from bubble gum wrapper I In n ii

o, . urred to me to do one of these bubble gum wrappers, as is, I irg. just to see * I. n ii would look like "

The precedents lor Lichtenstein's use ol i nager) exis Uusi henberg's and

Johns's 1950s works referred to above, in the series oP'paste ups' for Tricky Cad that West

Coast artist less [Collins] began in December 1953, using ( I, * uld's Did I

Ins central figure (fig. 9), and in the incorporation of comic strips in works by anoth i West Coast artist, Ed Ruscha, in 1959. Moreover, in England, Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton had been using images culled Iron, American magazines to make collages such as the former's I III, a Rich Man's Plaything (fig. 7, , , 1-47. and the latters

,„, ,w„„ is it that makes today's I m to different, so appealing? (fig 8), 1956 I la, d was

spoofing the current postwar nod »fthe ideal Ameri, an home with Ins rniage ol a

modern living room full of absurd juxtapositions, such as a house* ife « uummg and a

muscleman posing, a canned ham displayed on , table belo* a framed , ol

Young Romance comics.

Chapter 1: The Early Years

7. Eduardo Paolozzi, / Was a Rich Manh Plaything, < a 1947 ( ollag. on papi i

f the Tate Gallery, 1 m Ion

/,i 8. Richard Hamilton, Just what is i( that makes today's homes so different. so appealing?, \95i Kunsthalle Tubingen

Sammlung ' i I Zundel

9. Jew [Collins], Tricky Cad, Quel, 1954 (detail) Notebook of twelve

■ , 19 1 -. I New i

However I ichtenstein's paintings Men, the late 1940s and early 1950s already indicate his preference for Americana and popular American sources. In an exhibition held at the Carlebach GaUery in New York in 1951, he showed paintings of the Old West featuring treaty signings, cowboys and Native-American Indians, and popular images of American folklore based on images that he had found in Ufe and other magazines and in books on the subject. A painting from about 1952, /'/„■ Explore, (fig. 10), is an important early work in that it features for the first tune advertising copy taken directly from an ad-here, an ad for "Libby McNeill & Lirry's Cooked Corned Beef" (fig. 1 I) that accompanied an article about the opening of the American West in the July 4. 1949 issue of Ufe magazine. Many of his themes were derived front nineteenth-century paintings, such as those by Fredenck Remington, Charles Willson Peale, Frank B. Mayer, Alfred Jacob Miller, and William EUnney and Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware (tig. 2). 1851. Lichtenstein's two whimsical verstons of this well-known work, both painted around 1951 (see fig. 1). preceded Larry Puvers's more celebrated version of 1953 (tig. 3).

While Lichtenstein drew on early American subject matter for most of his work at the time, he was indebted to European Modernists such as Vas.lv Kandmsky. Paul Klee. Henri Matisse, loan Miro, and Pablo Picasso for the way in which he used motifs stylistically. Robert Rosenblum, in his review of Lichtenstein's show at the John Heller Gallery in New York in 1954, noted that these paintings "present an incongruity between style and subject." a characteristic feature that later became more evident in his mature work. Rosenblum singled out the "annoying quality of Lichtenstein's Americana in a Vart pom Varl context" but praised the pictures for being "attractively composed of large flat color- planes into which the forms of his battle-scenes and Indian-lore are unobtrusively [sic]

assimilated."

The paintings of this period constitute Lichtenstein's first use of an approach that attempted to define popular subject matter within the context of abstract style. In his fully developed work of the early 1960s, Lichtenstein magnified the dissonance between a commonplace subject and a fine-art style by choosing far more controversial subjects and by isolating and emphasizing these images in relationship to the painting's picture plane. It was this notorious marriage of low-art subject and high-art style that first brought him to prominence beginning in L961. The 1950s paintings of Americana, a common enough subject at the time, lacked the clarity of image and the tough impassive style of his 1960s work. However, this .hanged when he began to explore other American themes m the 1960s, featuring contemporary consumer products and images culled from the mass media. Ten Dollar Hill (fig. 12), a lithograph of 1956, is indicative of Lichtenstein's development in the 1950s. What distinguishes this and his other works of the period from his works of the early 1960s is his merging of popular images with abstract forms. Using the Cubist precedent of fragmenting forms in space. Lichtenstein fractured the motif and reorganized it so that the subject in the foreground was integrated as a single entity with the background plane. In his paintings of 19o1-(>2, he moved away from the disintegration of the subject and restated the figure/ground relationship as part of a new dynamic.

Born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on October 27, 1923, Lichtenstein grew up in a happy, middle-class home. His father, who died when Roy was twenty-three, was a

realtor, and his mother was a housewife. According to the artist, he and his younger sister. Renee. led an uneventful life. His first years in grade school were spent attending i kindergarten near 104th Street and West End Avenue and then al P.S 9 n< ai his horn* When he was eight and nme. he spent his summers .it .1 hues' camp, Camp Sagamore in upstate New York; tins was followed by two summers at t.nnp Belgrade in Maine It » at tins time that he first heard blues music on the radio and he, ame fascinated « ith it. He

recalls going with his childhood tnend Don Wolf to hear lienm < Iman perform al

Carnegie Hall a few yean later. Because of Wolfs interest in music. Lichtenstein took up

the clarinet briefly.

In 1936, Lichtenstein began eighth grade at the Frankhn S( hool fo! Boys, a pnvate school on Manhattan's Upper West Side. There were no art classes offered at Frankhn

when he turned fourteen he began taking Saturday morning classes at Parsons Si hool ol Design Durum his high-school years he he ame interested in jazz, frequenting the Apollo I heater and the Savo, Ballroom in Harlem and listening ,0 Count 11- band and I este, Young on tenor sax. He went to jazz clubs on and around Fifty-second Street, such as Kelly's Stables, the Three Deuces, the Famous Door, and Hickory I louse; and. mspired by

Picasso, he nude several paintings based on portraits of jazz musicians. In I -Ml I. he enrolled in a summer class at the Art Students I eagtie taught by Ame, i, an So, ial Keahst painter Reginald Marsh. Lichtenstein remembers that the class, winch involved pa.nt.ng from a model, was supervised by one of Marsh's monitors and that he hardly saw Marsh

After graduating from high school in 1940, he decided .0 pursue Ins interest ,1, art and. „ hi, pints' urging, found a fine arts program at Ohio State University -here he cot d earn aPbachelor-s degree. Lichtenstein was ., student at Ohm State from 1940 to »43, and,

after completing his military service, he reenrolled in 1946 and d w.th his

graduate stud,;, receiving an M.F.A. degree in 194 -stem attributes h,s ,es, ,„

Sua! organization to the teachings of 1 1 Sherman, one of fa. profi , there.

Sherman' stressed the importance of the relationship between a student , and . nous

when drawing from a model, and downplayed the significance ofmabng the dr.

resemble the mode,. Of particular interest to Sherm the rel ip be- n a

mark and the marks placed next to it. Sherman later taught a class using a ash lab h „lt

^ h after Lichtenstein left for the army hut remodeled in I'M,, fed. lante, „ s he

,;, briefly dashed on the scree, in a darke I h student was expecte o draw

NN h lt he or She had seen. The afterimage was very strong and from ,« the Stud, n. , ana ;,;,,t,onsh,p between the individual parts and the whole, As ,.„h,e„s,em has f:;l Orgamzed p'erceptio hat art is all about. 1 Le taught me h go a,

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Chapter 1: The Early Years

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didn't r. ..IK relish doing this job."" When more military personnel were needed in Europe after the Batik- of the Bulge, his pilot instruction was cut short and Ins unit was shipped overseas in February 1945. He served in England, France, Belgium, and Germany, until the war came to a close in Europe ... May. Lichtenstein and the other members of Ins unit waited to see if the} would receive orders to fight the war in Japan. When Japan surrendered to the Allied nations on September 2. I 'MS. bringing World War II to an end. many units— including his— were ordered to remain in Europe foi a time to serve as policing forces. During that time, he studied French and histor) at the Cite Universitaire in Paris. Later that year his father became ill, so he was furloughed home to New York and was finally discharged in January 1946. When he came back to the U.S.. he returned to Ohio State and completed his undergraduate stud.es under the G. 1. Bill. After graduating in |une 1946, he enrolled in Ohio State's M.F.A. program, was lured as an instructor while pursuing his stud.es (he received his master's degree in 1949), and continued to teach there until 1951.

Lichtenstein married Isabel Wilson in 1949 (the} wt re divon ed ... 1965) and, after he was domed tenure at Ohio State in 1951, they moved to Cleveland when Isabel found work there as a decorator. During the next sb< years, he wanked at a series of odd ,obs in Cleveland-teaching at the Cooper School, a commercial art s< hool; working as an engineering draftsman at Republic Steel; doing black-and-white dial work foi 1 hckock Electrical Instrument Company; making project models at an architecture tun,, and decorating display windows part-time at Halle's Department Store, l„ 1954 and 1956, sons

David Hoyt and Mitchell Wilson were bom. In 1968, Lichtenstein married 1 1 .1-

Herzka, whom he had met in New York inautumn 1964 during th, prepar sfo, »

exhibition called American Supermarket (featuring works by several artists asso, fated with the Pop art scene) at the Paul Bianchini ( ...Hers, where she worked.

He returned to teach,.,, mil-time in 1957 when he was offered a , tion .,, the Stat,

University of New York a, Oswego, and remained on the stall there u„„l he was

J assistant fessor ,t Douglass College, Rutgers University, ,„ New Jersey, ,„ , ,„ [n Ws first yeat on tl„ , ,0uglass faculty, I ichtenstein met Allan Kaprow, who w*

„ ling at Rutgers. Kaprow introduced him to Oldenburg, I » ega. (then completing

, M FA.,. ,n, to Lucas Samaras and Robert Whitman, who had both studied with Kap,ow the year before. A, Douglass he also met Robert Watts and, through ^several

members of the burgeoning Fluxus movement, includingG :ge Brecht, Geoffrey

H neks DickHiggins, Alison Knowles, and George Maciunas. Ka, I *U - *«

" m of art evems called Happenings (a tern, he invented todes, ri e the new an

,;„;„) Happenings utilized a series ofprops, many of, hen, larger-than-life s.z dtere

ob, , whKl, like then precursors in 1 )ada and Surreal had , hfe ol .l.e.r

Thte e cs'and the actors who accompanied the, shared eMt, ,1 billing „ ere an,

lie perceived, according to Oldenburg, as "objects in motion. In March and Number of 1958, Kapmw created two environments a, the 1 ^^^ and, beginning in 1 959, he and his « oUeagues performed nunc of Ik , p n Reuben Gallen, Some of the props from the Happenings were exhibited a the Martha

Chapter 1: The Early Years

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12. Roy Lichtenstein, 7Wi Dollar Bill, 1956 Lithograph numbei 13 ol in edition

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right 14. Robert Rauschenberg, Bed, 1955 ( ombine painting oil and pencil on pillow, quUt, and sheet on vvood supports, 191.1x80x20.3 cm (75^x31

s „„ » , ,1 gift ... Leo Castelb in honor of Alfred H Barr.Jr to The Muse

,,f Modem Art. New York.

association with the David Anderson Gallery in New York, the Martha Jackson Gallery

staged six Happenings in .1 presentation called Environments - Situations - Spaces (figs. 16, 17. and 18). Based on a form ol performance art that was meant to utilize the five senses and encourage the full participation of the audience, that exhibition featured Oldenburg's installation work The Store (which he re-created six months later at I 07 East Second Street in a rented warehouse, former!) used to stoic dining-room furniture, that he renamed the "Ray Gun Mfg. Go."). The Store * onsisted o\ 107 items — replicas of pastries, clothes, a bridal mannequin with a bouquet, and various relicts oi similar items made from muslm soaked in wet plaster and thickK painted with bright colored enamels. Other works in the Environments - Situations - Spaces exhibition were Kaprow's pile oi tires entitled Yard — an environment of fifty tires piled into the courtyard of the gallery — ^d D. lie's Spring Cabinet. Dine had created .1 room with walls covered in canvas and acrylii resin green paint, and with electric fans placed behind tin. fabl i< and paint buckets suspended from the ceiling, from which more paint poured into the room. Turning to S0< utv's mate] tal remnants for their inspiration, the perpetrators of this new art signaled a dramati< departure from Abstract Expressionism.

Lichtenstein attributes Ins renewed interest in popular imager) al the time to his exposure to Happenings and performance art. He saw some ol the informal I lappeningS that KapIOW staged at Douglass and the exhibitions related to them at the Martha Jackson Gallery in I960 and L961. He remembers discussions with Kaprow m which Kaprow argued that painting did not have to look like art. Lichtenstein, encouraged by Kaprow's remarks, showed him his newest paintings, abstrai 1 1 anvases with cartoon figures such as Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, and Mickey Mouse in their midst, ol whi( h today only preparatory drawings exist (see fig. 15). Kaprow remembers being tak< n iba< k al firs! b) the work, but urged Lichtenstein to continue working in that direction— ami so did Segal and Watts, who were also frequent visitors to his studio in Highland Park, New Jersey. Lichtenstein began his first Pop paintings shortly thereafter.

Although the groundwork for Pop art had been laid by the work of kausi henberg. Johns, Rivers, and others and by the Happenings, most oi the art world received its arrival with shocked incredulity. Art based on cartoons- On advertising' These were concepts that deeply offended the notion of taste as it was generally known and ai 1 epted in the early 1960s, even among the most radical of the avant-garde.

I he comic strip, with its ready-made drama, conquering heroes, and anxious heroines. and the consumer products advertised m the New York Yellow Pages provided Lichtenstein with a potentially explosive series of subjects, while the Benday-dot screen technique used in advertising— a method oi producing printed images in which gradations of shading are translated ...to a system of dots reproduced by line engraving" -sue- Sted a new way of painting. Unlike the Abstract Expressionists, who externalized themes drawn

from the subconscious. I ichtcnstc.n prefer* d to work with .1 preex.st.ngser.es of .mages. He wanted to make paintings that resembled cliches and. in so doing, to confront the cliches of art and the conventions that govern how we recognize ..rt as art. His ultimate aim was to use subjects seen as incompatible with art— common objects, the comic strip- as the central matter of his art. and thus to force the issue ofwhal constitutes art Although he washed to make a painting that was so -despicable- no one would hang it.

13

Chapter 1: The Early Years

15. Roy Lichtenstein, Donald Duck, 1958 India ink on pipe r, 50 • 24 in. In - Private collc< tion

^..W.AUanKaprowinhisinstaUationy^.inthe rtyardoftheM; |acl

Gallery, Ne* York, during the exhibition Env nts Situai - Spaces, M*J 25

[une 2^ 1961

„,„„ n.ciacsOldcnburgduringtheinstalL f 77* *,« for *e exhibit

/ nvironmenb Situations Spaces

,„„„„„ isjlm Dine in his installation Sj I Cabinet in the exhibition

Environments Situations - Spaa

Lichtenstein was quick to assert .mother goal .is well, the age-old ambition of the painter's will to form. When Swenson .tskeu him, in his 1963 interview, wh« ther Pop art