Roy Lichtenstein Retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago

Roy Lichtenstein: A "Retrospective”

Member Previews: May 13–18 
Opens May 22, 2012 
Through September 3, 2012

Art Institute of Chicago, Regenstein Hall, 111 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago

Roy Lichtenstein 1923 – 1997) is an American pop artists known for his brightly colored hard edged paintings that look like comic strips. he exhibited his work during the 1960s at the Leo Castelli Gallery and went on to become on the leaders in the pop movement along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist. Lichtenstein was influenced much like Warhol by advertising and American culture.

In 1946 he returned from military service and complete his Master of Fin Arts. He was influenced by Abstract Expressionism, and his work concentrated on  women in gardens,  wild animals, as well as romantic medieval subjects of knights and battles, all along taking on a subtle tongue-in-cheek irony

It was in 1961 that Lichtenstein made a change in his subjects and in the way he was painting. he begain to copy  commercial printing techniques, "creating tonal variations with patterns of colored circles that imitated the half-tone screens of Ben Day dots used in newspaper printing, and surrounding these with black outlines similar to those used to conceal imperfections in cheap newsprint. He applied these techniques to paintings based on small advertisements, as in Spray (1962; Stuttgart, Staatsgal.); and war comics, for example Whaam! (1963)

"The show at the Art Institute of Chiacgo includes 160 drawings, paintings, and sculptures. he Art Institute of Chicago is the first of only two American institutions that will house the exhibition — next it will travel to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Tate Modern in London, and Paris's Centre Pompidou. While his work has been absorbed into popular culture, inspiring countless imitations from t-shirts to street art murals, and consistently achieves high prices at the auction block, the Art Institute of Chicago summed up Lichtenstein’s life work best in the exhibition's press release, where he's described as an artist who “systematically dismantled the history of modern art while becoming a fixture in that canon.” Read more from: Art Info, Roy Lichtenstein'sRetrospective at the Art Institute Chicago

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Lichtenstein Foundation

Lichtenstein

"Nudes With Beach Ball" is part of a Roy Lichtenstein retrospective opening at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's  (October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) new retrospective, his first in 20 years opens at the Art Institute of Chicago on May 16. This exhibit concentrates on his drawings which many Lichtenstein lovers aren't aware of. Most recognize Lichtenstein's art thorough his interpretations of hot dogs and product packaging and reinterpretations of comic books but many do not know that the images he created resulted from his drawings to the finished painting. There are things in the show that have never been included in a public exhibition and there will be works from the artist’s family and estate and others that had been secreted away in private collections.

Curators at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Tate Modern in London have spent five years organizing their own retrospective, which opens in Chicago on May 16 before going to the National Gallery of Art in Washington in October, the Tate Modern in February 2013 and the Pompidou Center in Paris that July.

The New York Times article can be read in full here.