Water Lily
Water Lily
Signed Print
Roy Lichtenstein
£20,000-£29,000
$40,000-$60,000 Value Indicator
$35,000-$50,000 Value Indicator
¥190,000-¥270,000 Value Indicator
€23,000-€35,000 Value Indicator
$200,000-$300,000 Value Indicator
¥4,040,000-¥5,860,000 Value Indicator
$26,000-$40,000 Value Indicator
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32 x 43cm, Edition of 130, Screenprint
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Meaning & Analysis
Roy Lichtenstein’s Water Lily of 1993 is a brilliant screen print that integrates machine-made patterns with painterly gestures. The work pays homage to impressionist Claude Monet’s water lily oil paintings of the early 1900s. Water Lily also explores the underlying tension between the painter’s expert hand and the perfected means of mechanical reproduction. This signed work belongs to a limited edition of 130.
As a forefather of the American Pop Art movement, Roy Lichtenstein devised new ways to replicate the appearance of commercial printing. Although he developed his own unique iconography, the artist relied on art history for inspiration. Lichtenstein’s Water Lily is an autonomous edition, executed one year after the artist’s extraordinary Water Lilies. Although independent from the sequence, Water Lily also pays homage to impressionist Claude Monet’s scenic oil paintings of the early 1900s.
Similar to Les Nymphéas of the same year, the present work is a brilliant screen print that integrates machine-made patterns with painterly gestures. Water Lily captures a single enlarged water lily with white petals and dark green leaves resting on the water. The botanical elements have been flattened against the picture plane through cropping and accentuated through thick black contouring. The water’s surface is composed entirely out of vivid blue stripes and a dense streak of dots.
Lichtenstein made numerous paintings and prints based on the work of Monet, see his Cathedrals and Haystacks for instance. Water Lily also integrates Lichtenstein’s preoccupation with reflections and perception. The artist explored these optical themes continuously throughout his career, most notably in his Mirrors and Reflections series.