Roy
Lichtenstein

'Is he the worst artist in America?' asked a Life magazine article about Lichtenstein in 1964. Nonetheless, the artist was enjoying critical acclaim – not just in the United States but worldwide – alongside his contemporaries Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Claes Oldenburg.

Over his career, Lichtenstein made more than 5,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures and other works, which are now housed in the world’s most prestigious institutions and collections – including the Tate Modern in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

In 1966, Lichtenstein said that Cubism, Cartooning and Commercial Art were his clearest influences. Although he is best known for his comic book style artworks, Lichtenstein referenced art history, ranging from classical Chinese scroll paintings to Abstract Expressionism.

'Artists have often converted the work of other artists into their own style,' Lichtenstein admitted. He has recreated masterpieces from Claude Monet’s Haystacks to Picasso’s portraits and Jackson Pollock’s sweeping brushstrokes in his signature Benday dots. 'I’m interested in my work’s redeveloping these classical ways, except that it’s not classical, it’s like a cartoon. I’m interested because of the impact it has when you look at it.'

Lichtenstein borrowed techniques from comic strips and commercial printing, most notably the Ben-Day dot, but he maintained he was not just a simple copyist. 'I am nominally copying,' he said, 'but I am really restating the copied thing in other terms. In doing that, the original acquires a totally different texture. It isn't thick or thin brushstrokes, it's dots and flat colours and unyielding lines.'

Lichtenstein’s paintings may look machine-made, but each dot is carefully and painstakingly painted by hand. For his painting Whaam!, Lichtenstein created his signature Ben-Day dots using an aluminium mesh as a template, pushing oil paint through the holes using a toothbrush.

In 1949, Lichtenstein married his first wife Isabel Wilson, with whom he had two sons. The couple separated in 1962. Dramatic paintings of romance and conflict ­– from explosive war scenes like Whaam! to the heartbroken Drowning Girl and Engagement Rings – soon followed, possibly a reflection of Lichtenstein’s own hopes and disappointments surrounding his personal life. 'I was interested in anything I could use as a subject that was emotionally strong. Usually love, war, or something that was highly charged and emotional subject matter,' the artist later recalled.

Lichtenstein married his second wife Dorothy Herzka in 1968. They lived together in Southampton, New York, from 1970 until Lichtenstein’s death in 1997. Dorothy is now president of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.