ROY LICHTENSTEIN, NIGHT SCENE, ETCHING AND ENGRAVING WITH AQUATINT ON LANA PAPER, EDITION OF 32, 1980
Roy Lichtenstein’s revision of the romanticised representation of Native American culture first began with his cubist style paintings of the 1950s. Expanding the core of his initial works, the 1980s American Indian series allows Lichtenstein’s pop vocabulary to take the lead. All tribal designs are in this printed sequence mixed together to highlight clichés about Native Americans.
Lichtenstein’s Night Scene was executed in 1980 and belongs to the aforementioned American Indian series. In this work, the artist fully abstracts his chosen indegenous artefacts from their original contexts. He then proceeds by rendering the three dimensional objects and decorative motifs into simplified cartoon versions of themselves.
Lichtenstein places the compressed figures of Night Scene in the midst of saturated colours and stylised geometric patterns. The print depicts flattened illustrations of a canoe, a cactus and a teepee. The shapes on the left are set on a dark backdrop composed of a ragged black and yellow night sky, while the right-hand side of the composition plays in bright yellow, red and deep blue.
In Night Scene, the abstracted forms are enabled to communicate their own narratives, while keeping with the conditioned history of indigenous representation. By showing exactly what the viewer expects to see, Lichtenstein’s American Indian series constitutes a form of cultural commentary.
Read more about American Indian 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.
