Roy Lichtenstein: All About Art

Asked why he painted pictures of pictures, Roy Lichtenstein replied that artists had, in a sense, always done so. The historical and actual power of the image is clear here, just as it is clear in Lichtenstein’s iconic paintings, wherein he captured familiar objects with an exceptional graphic precision by way of the comic book. Whether he was representing a couch, a turkey, an artist’s studio, or an emotional woman (“I don’t care! I’d rather sink–than call Brad for help!”), Lichtenstein captured the essential cliche of the strong image. All About Art is all about Lichtenstein’s lifelong fascination with and investigation of the image as image, a theme well borne out by the large group of pictures illustrated here in which different elements in the rhetoric of image formation are brushstrokes, stretchers, mirrors, graphic shorthand translations of other paintings, meticulous quotings of comic book imagery, flat iconic representations of commercial objects, etc. ZAP! BOOM! POW! to you. Accompanying texts include David Sylvester’s last interview with Lichtenstein and an oral history of the artist, coordinated by Avis Berman.