ROY LICHTENSTEIN, GIRL IN MIRROR, PORCELAIN ENAMEL ON STEEL, EDITION OF 8, 1964
Girl In Mirror is a transgressive work from Roy Lichtenstein’s early artistic oeuvre. Completed in 1964, the print is part of a collection of critical artworks depicting cartoon heroines. Lichtenstein based his female portraits on stills from advertisements, movies, and romance comics. With his leading ladies, the artist sought to revise skewed representations of female identity.
Girl In Mirror was manufactured using advanced printing methods and is firmly rooted in the seminal foundations of Pop Art. This glossy work serves as a strategic commentary on the divide between high and low culture.
Girl In Mirror introduces a graceful blonde woman framed within the constraints of a handheld mirror. Similar to the protagonist of Crying Girl created one year prior, the depersonalised and isolated female figure presented here examines society's codification of femininity. The work raises questions about voyeurism in consumer culture by ridiculing fabricated visual tropes.
Additionally, this work is also one of Lichtenstein’s first explorations into the optically and intellectually intriguing subject of mirrors. Using the object as a metaphor for hidden truths, Lichtenstein initiates a discourse about complexities that cannot be perceived through reflections. The artist pursued themes of projection and perception continuously throughout his career, most notably in his Mirrors and Reflections series.
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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.
