ROY LICHTENSTEIN, COMPOSITION II, COMPOSITION SERIES, SCREEN PRINT ON LANAQUARELLE WATERCOLOUR PAPER, EDITION OF 50, 1996
Born and raised in New York City, Roy Lichtenstein came to prominence in the 1960s as a pioneer of Pop Art. His comic book style illustrations feature his characteristic Ben Day dots, stripes and primary colours, aiming to elevate products of printmaking into the realm of fine art.
Lichtenstein’s mother was a gifted piano player. The artist himself played the clarinet as a child and learned to play the saxophone shortly before his death in 1997. As an ardent lover of jazz in particular, Lichtenstein hints at his passion for music already in his early prints of the 1960s. His Brushstroke Faces, for instance, reveal clever musical undertones. Alluding to the abstraction process applied in his Bulls series, Lichtenstein’s Composition series from the mid 1990s convey his passion for music ever so directly.
Composition II, in line with Composition I, responds to the improvisatory nature of music, presenting arrangements of curving musical notations. The overall composition zooms in on the red detailed black notes and looping staves, which are set against an area of magnified dots and stripes in the primary colours of blue, yellow and red. Eggshell, royal blue and pale cyan coloured bits peek through the background of the work’s landscape format.
Find out more about the Composition series by Roy Lichtenstein
ABOUT ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Born in Manhattan in 1923, Roy Lichtenstein was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement during the second half of the 20th century. His distinctive artistic style is inspired by the visual language of consumerism and advertising that pervaded American popular culture at the time, and his work recalls a society of widespread commercialism that has remained powerfully relevant to this day. Learn more about Roy Lichtenstein.
