Roy Lichtenstein is one of the principal figures of the American Pop art movement, along with Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Claes Oldenburg and Robert Rauschenberg.
Drawing inspiration from comic strips, Lichtenstein appropriated techniques commercial printing in his paintings, introducing a vernacular sensibility to the visual landscape of contemporary art. He employed visual elements such as the halftone dots that comprise a printed image, and a comic-inspired use of primary colors gave his paintings their signature “Pop” palette.
Born and raised in New York City, Lichtenstein enjoyed Manhattan’s myriad cultural offerings and comic books in equal measure. He began painting seriously as a teenager, studying watercolor painting at the Parsons School of Design in the late 1930s, and later at the Art Students League, where he worked with American realist painter Reginald Marsh. He began his undergraduate education at Ohio State University in 1940, and after a three-year stint in the United States Army during World War II, he completed his bachelor’s degree and then his master’s in fine arts. The roots of Lichtenstein’s interest in the convergence of high art and popular culture are evident even in his early years in Cleveland, where in the late 1940s, he taught at Ohio State, designed window displays for a department store and painted his own pieces.
Working at the height of the Abstract Expressionist movement in the 1950s, Lichtenstein deliberately eschewed the sort of painting that was held in high esteem by the art world and chose instead to explore the visual world of print advertising and comics. This gesture of recontextualizing a lowbrow image by importing it into a fine-art context would become a trademark of Lichtenstein’s artistic style, as well as a vehicle for his critique of the concept of good taste. His 1963 painting Whaam! confronts the viewer with an impact scene from a 1962-era issue of DC Comics’ All American Men of War. Isolated from its larger context, this image combines the playful lettering and brightly colored illustration of the original comic with a darker message about military conflict at the height of the Cold War. Crying Girl from the same year featured another of Lichtenstein’s motifs — a woman in distress, depicted with a mixture of drama and deadpan humor. His work gained a wider audience by creating a comic-inspired mural for the New York State Pavilion of the 1964 World's Fair, he went on to be represented by legendary New York gallerist Leo Castelli for 30 years.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Lichtenstein experimented with abstraction and began exploring basic elements of painting, as in this 1989 work Brushstroke Contest. In addition to paintings in which the brushstroke itself became the central subject, in 1984 he created a large-scale sculpture called Brushstrokes in Flight for the Port Columbus International Airport in Ohio. Still Life with Windmill from 1974 and the triptych Cow Going Abstract from 1982 both demonstrate a break from his earlier works where the subjects were derived from existing imagery. Here, Lichtenstein paints subjects more in line with the norms of art history — a pastoral scene and a still life — but he has translated their compositions into his signature graphic style, in which visual elements of printed comics are still a defining feature.
Lichtenstein’s work is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and many others. He was awarded National Medal of Arts in 1995, two years before he passed away.
Find a collection of Roy Lichtenstein prints, drawings and more on 1stDibs.
Indian with Pipe
By Roy Lichtenstein
Located in New York, NY
This exceptional oil on canvas by master Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein is an exceptional and unique example of his early pre-pop work. It is signed by the artist, upper right. After m...
Canvas, Oil
Price Upon Request
The Diver
By Roy Lichtenstein
Located in Long Island City, NY
This is an important early painting by Lichtenstein. It will be included in forthcoming Catalogue Raisonne by the Lichtenstein Association. Artist: Roy Lic...
Oil
$1,500
H 24.02 in W 24.02 in D 0.99 in
mr. c and gladys, bright colorful man and dog
By Stephen Basso
Located in Brooklyn, NY
*ABOUT Stephen Basso Stephen Basso's highly original pastels and oil paintings are romantic, yet thought provoking fantasies. His whimsical works are alive with boundless imagina...
Canvas, Oil
$1,200
H 31.13 in W 43.25 in D 2.25 in
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden Reimagined in Jacmel, Haiti Folk Art Painting
By Dieudonne Vital
Located in Houston, TX
Colorful, tropical interpretation of the Garden of Eden in Jacmel, Haiti by Haitian artist Dieudonne Vital. The work features a pair of central figures...
Canvas, Oil
$1,425
H 32 in W 39 in
The Red Dress 5 - Framed Dynamic Original Red Figurative Abstract Oil Painting
By Bettina Mauel
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Bettina Mauel, an internationally collected artist, effortlessly channels vitality and sensuality through her awe-inspiring collection of abstract and figurative paintings. With an u...
Canvas, Graphite, Mixed Media, Oil
$4,500
H 20 in W 23 in D 1.75 in
"Canals in Annecy, France" by Emma Fordyce MacRae (1887-1974) American Framed
By Emma Fordyce MacRae
Located in Yardley, PA
A lovely scene of the canals in Annecy, France by renowned American artist Emma Fordyce MacRae (1887-1974). This work highlights the geometric nature of the historic architecture al...
Gesso, Oil, Board
Untitled
By David Smith
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"Untitled" is a painting by artist David Smith. The work is signed and dated in the upper left "David Smith (symbol) 1936". When David Smith set up a workshop on the Brooklyn Navy Pier in 1933 to learn direct-metal techniques, he shared the space not with artists, but with professional welders. Yet as he stated in 1964, ‘…all my early friends were painters…I never conceived of myself as anything other than a painter because my work came straight through the raised surface.’ Picasso and Cubism would be dominant influences in Smith’s work. He understood that Picasso imagined the world as a sculptor might, and not necessarily limited to the unavoidable impact of Cubism. In addition to pursuing a kind of rethinking of the world in three-dimensionality on his own terms, by the late 1920s, Picasso had shown interest in surrealism. That meant drawing not as a depiction of reality, but rather as a reconfiguration of the body in an assemblage of often precariously balanced, interconnected forms — some expressed in a three-dimensional form, others as drawings or paintings. Those processes are reflected in this work by David Smith; three fanciful totemic assemblages set within a landscape perspective of ground, mountains, and sky and whose presence is surreal enough to cast shadows under a presumed solar presence. Untitled, 1936 embraces surrealism, yet also serves to demonstrate the extent to which his thought processes are inextricably linked to sculpture and related to scale, spatial orientation, and three-dimensionality. With that in mind, it is not surprising to know that Smith saw no demarcation between sculpture and painting, or that a painting such as Untitled (1936) can exist outside of planning or design for future three-dimensional work. Provenance: Estate of David Smith, New York Hauser & Wirth Private Collection Exhibition: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, ‘David Smith: Skulptureen, Zeichnungen [David Smith: Sculpture and Drawings]’ Dusseldorf/DE, March 14 – April 27, 1986 (travelled to: Städtische Galerie im Stäelschen Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt/DE, June 19 – September 28, 1986: Whitechapel Art Gallery...
Canvas, Oil
$1,108
H 27.56 in W 19.69 in D 0.79 in
Contemporary abstract expressive figurative painting woman on canvas "No limits"
By Natalya Mougenot
Located in VÉNISSIEUX, FR
This contemporary, expressive figurative oil painting titled "No Limits" was created by French artist Natalya Mougenot and marks a significant shift in her artistic journey. Part of ...
Canvas, Oil, Oil Pastel, Acrylic
Figure in Purple Abstract
By Daniel David Fuentes
Located in Soquel, CA
Abstract figure in purple by San Jose, California area artist Daniel David Fuentes (AKA, Xavier Lundt) (American, 1978-2016). Bay area abstract expressionist and landscape artist dur...
Canvas, Oil
Untitled
By David Smith
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"Untitled" is a painting by American artist David Smith. David Smith’s paintings from the 1930s rarely come to market, and when Untitled (Billiard Players) surfaced at a Christie’s auction in 2018, it created quite a stir, realizing an impressive price of $1.15 million. Painted around the same time, Untitled shares many similarities with Untitled (Billiard Players). Both paintings affirm Smith’s place among the American artists when ideas and style began to intermingle and coalesce around Picasso’s innovations. Uniquely positioned in temperament and ability, Smith was a man of considerable ambition whose direct-metal configurations would have much to do with achieving new ideas about abstraction. Yet all along, he insisted he was a painter, not a sculptor who painted. Paintings by Smith...
Canvas, Oil
Edgar Yeager Figurative Interior Scene
By Edgar Yaeger
Located in Detroit, MI
SALE ONE WEEK ONLY Yaeger was an American Modernist painter from Detroit, Michigan, who is credited with being one of the first painters in this style. The portrait “Untitled” easil...
Canvas, Oil
Portrait of an Israeli Boy
By Bacia Gordon
Located in Surfside, FL
Genre: Classic Subject: Portrait Medium: Oil Surface: Canvas Country: United States Dimensions: 21.25" x 18.25" Dimensions w/Frame: 28.75" x 25.75" Bacia Gordon (1904-1977) came to ...
Canvas, Oil
Sketch of Carla at Age 12
By Jacquelinne White
Located in San Francisco, CA
Artist: Jacquelinne White– American (1919-2008) Title: Sketch of Carla at the Age of 12 Year: 1957 Medium: Oil on canvas Sight size: 37.5 x 27.5 Framed size: 41 x 31 inches Signatur...
Canvas, Oil
$1,831
H 23.63 in W 15.75 in
THE ARCHER - Italian Abstract Oil on Canvas Painting.
By Alfonso Pragliola
Located in Napoli, IT
The archer - Modern -Alfonso Pragliola Italia 2014 - Oil on canvas cm.60x40. Black laquered wooden frame.
Canvas, Oil
Indian
By Roy Lichtenstein
Located in New York, NY
This oil on canvas by master Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein is an exceptional and unique example of his early work. It is signed and dated in oil, lower left recto. After moving to Cl...
Canvas, Oil
