Roy Lichtenstein
1923-1997

1973
Paper・lithography, Silk Screen, Line-cut on Paper
68.3×88.6cm 

Roy Lichtenstein was an American painter. He studied fine art at Ohio State University. He was painting abstract paintings, but was attracted by the expressivity of cartoons. He pioneered a unique style by magnifying one panel of a comic strip and reproducing it precisely, all the way to the Ben-Day dots from the printing. He became a leading painter in the pop art scene. Later, he started to engage in the remaking of famous paintings of old and new in his unique style. In this museum, a printing series, "Haystack" (1969) which was inspired by Monet's Haystack is stored. He passed away in the U.S in 1997.

Picasso showed the process of abstraction from representational figures of bulls in his lithographic series. He removed unnesessary elements from the figures and left only essential outlines of the shapes. He created "Bull" (1946) and divided the procedures of the reduction into 11 stages and each stage is printed in the series. Following Picasso's idea that the creative process of abstraction is itself art, Lichtenstein created this series of 6 printings. The greatest incident or fruit of 20th century art is said to be the invention of abstract art. Lichtenstein must have sarcastically created this series parodying this idea. A representational figure of bull was gradually and geometrically abstracted. One by one, the figure furthers itself from the original figure. How many people can identify the bull in the last piece?