ROY LICHTENSTEIN, MIRROR #3, MIRROR SERIES, MIXED MEDIA, LINE-CUT AND SCREEN PRINT IN COLOURS WITH EMBOSSING ON ARJOMARI PAPER, EDITION OF 80, 1972
Roy Lichtenstein’s Mirrors revise the historic iconography of mirrors. The series was first launched in the late 1960s and concluded in the early 1990s. In art and mythology, mirrors have been used to reveal the hidden and the unconscious. Lichtenstein’s enigmatic Mirrors honour the traditions of object painting, keeping the formal characteristics of the motif intact. However, the prints dismiss the item’s symbolic and functional purpose entirely.
Mirror #3, executed in 1972, presents an increasingly minimalistic take on Mirror #2 of the same series. The work has a densely dotted backdrop, overlaid with a dark blue semicircle. The added geometric layer is positioned slightly off centre. Yellow and light blue jagged lines demarcate the edges of its frame. Lichtenstein uses these regularised patterns to allude to the reflective attributes of glass. Simultaneously, he also applies the dots and streaks to obscure his subject matter. Presented frontally, Mirror #3 displays the complete absence of reflections. As such, the print is as much a parody, as it is an illustration of a mirror.
Over the course of his career, Lichtenstein embarked on several other series dealing with vision and representation. His Water Lilies and Reflections, for instance, explore various perceptions of light and reflection. Meanwhile, Lichtenstein’s Entablatures delve further into object painting, reproducing enlarged architectural fragments as their main composition.
Read more about Mirrors 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.
