Liechtenstein and Andy Warhol were used on the U2 1997, 1998 PopMart Tour and in the 2007 exhibition at the British National Portrait Gallery. A painting from Liechtenstein’s Entablature series was destroyed by fire. Among many other works of art lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001.
In the early 1960s Liechtenstein rose to fame as one of the leading pop artists through comic book art, particularly DC comics, commercial success and pop art. In the late 1940s Liechtenstein exhibited his work in galleries throughout the country including Cleveland and New York. Roy Lichtenstein renowned for his innovative career on imitation, starting with borrowing images from comics and advertisements in the early 1960s.
The Girl with the Ball is from a print advertisement for Mount Airy Lodge in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania and the other painting Drowning is featured on the cover of the comics. Liechtenstein copied the original image manually, adapting its composition to his narrative or formal purposes, and then applied this modified sketch using a projector to the canvas.
He also decided to explore other themes present in his masterpieces, such as American folklore and history and mythological subjects. However, his name is synonymous with cartoons that he wrote in the early 1960s – the first of which, Look at Mickey Mouse, which is now at the National Gallery of Art, dates to 1961, and stylistically and thematically all subsequent works… come from these parts. Drowning Girl, Whaam! And Look Mickey are considered his most influential works.
He began his artistic career with themes of the American West in various styles of contemporary art and admired Abstract Expressionism in 1957, a style he later opposed. His interest in comics as an art theme likely began with a painting by Mickey and Donald which he painted in 1960 for his children. Although initially dissatisfied with his technique and unorthodox direct assignment, he took great pleasure in presenting famous comic characters in an art form.
Through his work became a leader in the pop art movement even after his death. His work inspired many artists who adopted his techniques and sought to explore their own environments to present pop art-inspired artworks in their own unique styles. Throughout the 1960s, Liechtenstein was a leading figure in the new art movement, often parodying, in an ironic way.
He described pop art as “not American painting, but actually industrial painting” but when it came to early work of Roy Lichtenstein, Warhol gave up experimenting with comics superhero images, the uniqueness of American pop art lies in the fact that (unlike British pop art) the main figures — Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol – did not have personal relationships with each other – and independently developed their pop art styles.
In February in New York, Liechtenstein held his first comic book exhibition at the Kastelli Gallery, and Rosenquist held his first solo exhibition at the Green Gallery. In July in Los Angeles, Warhol held his first solo pop art exhibition, Campbell’s 32 cans of soup, at the Ferus Gallery and featured 29 artists including Lichtenstein, Warhol, Rosenquist, Thibault, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Indiana and George Segal.
There were other works from the 1960s that presented cartoon characters such as Mickey and Donald Duck as well as advertisements for food and household goods. According to the now-familiar narrative of Kennedy-era American art, he appeared in 1962 with his first solo show at the Leo Castelli Gallery and ruled the New York pop art triumvirate with Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist.
At the time, Liechtenstein studied and experimented with many artistic problems, philosophies and genres. He was particularly interested in how painting represents the world and how different art movements such as Impressionism, Cubism and Expressionism have differently stated what this image is capable of. His work was inspired by military comics and romance stories.
It was at this moment that Liechtenstein began to gain fame in America not only in America but throughout the world; he returned to New York in 1964 to become the center of the art scene and left Rutgers University to focus on his painting.
Roy Lichtenstein was an American pop artist known for his flamboyant comic book parodies and commercials and became a leading figure in the new pop art movement in the 1960s.
The brilliant graphic work of Liechtenstein inspired by commercials and comics, parodied American popular culture and the art world itself. This exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997), included about 170 works created between 1950 and 1997 with emphasis on the achievements of artists in painting, sculpture and graphics. It was the first major retrospective that examined his art in detail after his death.
