TATE LIVERPOOL ARTIST ROOMS 22 SEP – 17 JUN 2018 ROY LICHTENSTEIN IN FOCUS INTRODUCTION
ARTIST ROOMS is owned by the National The pack is designed to support teachers and This display is free. For further details about Galleries of Scotland and Tate. The collection educators in planning a visit to the display with visiting Tate Liverpool with your group and is shared across the UK with Ferens Art Gallery, a collection of ideas, workshops and points for to book a visit online see: supported by the National Lottery through discussion. It is intended as a starting point that Arts Council England, Art Fund and by the will ‘trigger’ your own connections and creative www.tate.org.uk/learn/teachers/school-visits- National Lottery through Creative Scotland. ideas. The activities are suitable for all ages and tate-liverpool This free display at Tate Liverpool brings can be adapted to your needs before, during together over 20 works charting the career and after your visit. Email: [email protected] of Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) from his early interest in landscape to the iconic pop Call: +44 (0) 1517 027 400 paintings influenced by comic strips and advertising imagery. It includes Lichtenstein’s only work with the media of film, his triple- screen installation Three Landscapes made at Universal Studios in 1969.
Cover: Reflections: Art 1988 © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2017
2 Roy Lichtenstein In Focus Teachers’ Pack CONTENTS
ROY LICHTENSTEIN 4
ACTIVITIES 7
IN THE CAR 1963 8
ACTIVITIES 11
GLOSSARY 12
FURTHER RESOURCES 13
3 Roy Lichtenstein In Focus Teachers’ Pack ROY LICHTENSTEIN
“It occurred to me one day to do something that Born in Manhattan in 1923 Roy Lichtenstein While teaching at the State University of New would appear to be just the same as a comic grew up in the West Side of New York City. Jersey, he became friends with Allan Kaprow book illustration without employing the then His studies at Ohio State University College and attended several of his ‘happenings’. He current symbols of art: the thick and thin paint, of Education were interrupted by the Second also met Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg and the calligraphic line and all that had become World War when he was posted in Europe and Claes Oldenburg, whose radical approach to the hallmark of painting in the 1940s and ‘50s. saw active service in the US Army. Returning to subject matter, processes and materials was I would make marks that would remind one of complete his degree after the war, he became largely a reaction to the dominance of Abstract a real comic strip.” an art teacher, first at Ohio and then in Expressionism, paving the way for Pop Art. New York where he returned with his young From these artists, Lichtenstein took an interest — Roy Lichtenstein family in 1957. in the ready-made art object, the ephemera of everyday life and mass-production and he During this period, he was experimenting with extended this to the practice of painting. a wide range of artistic styles. In common with many young artists of the 1950s, he was greatly ‘I wanted to say something that hadn’t been influenced by American Abstract Expressionists said before, and it seemed to me that the such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De way to do it was to make it look industrial… Kooning. As he began to develop his own style, This was the way the world looked after all. Lichtenstein looked for a way of making art that The real American architecture is McDonalds was relevant to his own generation: ‘…art has not Mies Van der Rohe’ become extremely romantic and unrealistic, feeding on art, it is utopian, it has less and less to do with the world, it looks inward.’
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Lichtenstein claimed that it was a request recognisable. They were means of flattening the To traditionalists, his apparent plagiarism of from his small son to paint Mickey Mouse and image, emphasising its surface and giving the commercial imagery and aping of ‘low art’ Donald Duck that inspired him to make cartoon character of a printed work. In early works, such techniques was considered an affront to taste. images. Their recognisable features were as Whaam! 1963, they were painted by hand but Following a visit to Lichtenstein’s debut solo sketchily painted in a number of expressionist he later used sheets of stencils and rollers to exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New works before he had the idea ‘of doing one apply the dots more efficiently. York, 1962, art critic Max Kozloff declared that fairly straight’ and copying a picture exactly as ‘Art galleries are being invaded by the pin- it appeared in the comic book. In the early 1960s, Roy Lichtenstein created the headed and contemptible style of gum-chewers, series of comic-book paintings which brought bobby-soxers, and worse, delinquents.’ In His first Pop Art painting was Look Mickey 1961, him media attention worldwide. The art critic January 1964, Life magazine published an article taken from a children’s Walt Disney story- Brian O’Doherty coined the term ‘handmade by Dorothy Seiberling on Lichtenstein with the book illustration. From a distance, it appears readymade’ to describe Lichtenstein’s unique headline, ‘Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?’ to have been mechanically printed on a large works. He appropriated melodramatic images In 1966, the Tate Gallery was ridiculed by the scale, however close inspection reveals its of love-torn young women and brave war press for spending £3,940 on Whaam! 1963 and hand-made process with legible brushstrokes heroes from comics and teen romance trustees Herbert Read and Barbara Hepworth and preparatory drawing marks in evidence magazines and transferred them onto large- tried to block its acquisition. The work, which is on the canvas. Lichtenstein made a number of scale canvases ablaze with vibrant colour and now considered a modern masterpiece, would significant changes from the original source: he energy. Lichtenstein’s technique was to search be worth millions of pounds if sold today, cropped the image and focussed on the figures for appropriate frames from comic strips or but at the time, Read dismissed the pop icon: and allowed them to fill his frame; simplified advertisements, cut them out and carefully ‘This sort of thing is just nonsense.’ colours and perspective to reduce any illusion make a simplified copy on the same scale in of three dimensional space and he exaggerated pencil. He would then use a projector to transfer the thick, black outlines. He also employed the his drawing onto a large canvas. He sketched printer’s technique of Ben Day dots to suggest over the projected lines, filling the gaps with flat shading. These dots, named after the printer areas of primary colours, applying the dots and Benjamin Day who invented them in 1879, then finally surrounding the forms with a thick, became increasingly prominent in subsequent black contour. Lichtenstein paintings, making his work instantly
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Lichtenstein, deliberately played on these ‘I was interested in doing other artists’ works, The exhibition at Tate Liverpool features prejudiced views of what is or can be called not so much as they appear but as they might Lichtenstein’s triple screen film installation, art. From the mid 1960s, he ‘Lichtenteinized’ be understood – the idea of them, or as they Three Landscapes, c1970-71, his only venture in a wide range of subject matter, including the might be described verbally.’ this medium. The result of a short residency traditional genres of still life, landscape and at Universal Studios in 1969 it consists of 5 the nude. He revamped historical styles of Lichtenstein also questioned the traditional minute film loops of water and sky projected representation with a wry sense of humour language of art, bringing attention to how we onto three screens in the gallery. Each screen is and made his own versions of works by major read painted surfaces and accept their illusions. divided horizontally to combine footage of the artists such as Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso. In the giant cartoon-like gesture of Brushstroke sea, a tropical fish-tank, static images of Ben In the age of mass production, when many 1965 he makes an ironic comment on the Day dot patterns and stills of sky and clouds people were familiar with famous artworks notion of art as an expression of individuality separated by Lichtenstein’s characteristic black through printed material such as postcards, and in Reflections: Art 1988 he reduces outline. The result is a disorientating hybrid of catalogues and magazines, Lichtenstein the conventions of art-making to a simple cinema, painting, reality and comic strip, and highlighted the way that art is translated formula: subject, brush-marks, frame, glass a play between the moving image and flat by the process of printing. and reflections. surface of the screen.
Throughout his career, Lichtenstein applied Ben Day dots, thick outlines and other comic- art techniques to three-dimensional objects such as sculpture and ceramics. Wall Explosion ll 1965, for example, translates a cartoon motif into a relief with the use of painted steel sheets.
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ACTIVITIES
RESEARCH DISCUSS EXPLORE Pop Art – who were the key artists? Find out Lichtenstein’s stereotypical representation of The three dimensional works of Roy about their artworks. What materials and male and female in his paintings. Compare Lichtenstein. How do they relate to his processes did they use? How did they relate and contrast the use of line, form, colour paintings? ‘Lichtensteinize’ a 3D object art to everyday life in the 1960s? and texture for each figure. Talk about facial such as a plain mug, plate, box or bowl expression, gesture, roles, characters – what by painting it. You could turn yourself into MAKE they do and say a Lichtenstein work by dressing in bright Your own Lichtenstein painting from a colours and using face-paints to apply dots! photograph, cartoon frame or advertisement. FIND OUT Copy or trace the outlines of the image and About comic book art and cartoons. How DISCUSS fill the outlines with primary colours and do graphic artists suggest movement, noise, Appropriation in art – why do artists Benday dots. You could make a portrait of a impact, express emotion and tell stories? borrow, copy or incorporate images from friend, family member or transform a selfie! Talk about the differences between paintings other sources into their own work? Find the and cartoons. original sources of some of Lichtenstein’s works and talk about the changes he has made in his copy.
7 Roy Lichtenstein In Focus Teachers’ Pack WORK IN FOCUS: IN THE CAR 1963
‘One of the things a cartoon does is to express violent emotion and passion in a completely mechanical removed style. To express this thing in a painting style would be to dilute it.’
Roy Lichtenstein, In The Car 1963 © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2017. Photo: Antonia Reeve
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In The Car is one of a series of paintings The source for this painting was a story entitled • EDITING – the comic’s frame has been from the early 1960s based on comic strip ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ which appeared in cropped in order to focus on the heads and pictures which depict archetypical images the September 1961 issue of Girls’ Romances, by shoulders of the car’s occupants of contemporary American life. Lichtenstein Signal Publishing Ltd. The original strip included considered his comic-book works as a modern a thought bubble which read, ‘I vowed to • COLOURS – are more vivid and less day equivalent of traditional history painting myself I would not miss my appointment – That natural – for example, the man’s hair is blue – freezing a particular moment in time and I would not go riding with him – Yet before I rather than brown and the woman’s blonde capturing its essence. knew it…’. The woman in this story is angry hair is transformed to a bright yellow at herself for being attracted to this man and The fast car is a clichéd symbol of post-war her apparent inability to resist his advances. • SCALE – the comic image has to fit America but we don’t see the vehicle here, only It is typical of Lichtenstein’s choice of subjects the narrative grid on a hand-held page. the steering wheel, windshield and a suggestion and many of his paintings deal with similarly Lichtenstein’s painting takes on the of velocity in the cartoon speed lines. It could melodramatic scenes of mistreated women, dimensions of a tv screen or billboard be a scene from a soap opera or a B- Movie caught up in a hopeless romance. poster. as we zoom in on the front seats: a glamorous blonde woman in a leopard-skin coat is being Lichtenstein did not include any text in his • COMPOSITION – the image as a whole has chauffeured by a ruggedly-handsome man in reworking of the image. He insisted that after been simplified and made easier to ‘read’ a smart suit. She seems tense and sits upright, he had selected and cut out a picture, his copy fixing her eyes on the road ahead. He leans was divorced from its original context and • PROCESS – the major difference, of course forward, casts a cool glance at his passenger narrative: ‘Once I am involved with the painting is that the comic is mechanically produced and with one hand on the wheel drives away. I think of it as an abstraction.’ Besides removing whilst Lichtenstein has made his ‘printed’ the word bubble, Lichtenstein made a number image painstakingly by hand. of significant alterations in transforming the isolated frame from a ten-cent comic made for mass-production, into a unique painting, created for gallery walls and the fine art market:
9 Roy Lichtenstein In Focus Teachers’ Pack
Lichtenstein employed many of the cartoonist’s The shallow pictorial space of the car adds to clichés, using the standardised symbols the tension between the two protagonists. Their such as horizontal speed lines and diagonal heads, though close together are positioned reflection lines to suggest the surface of the in opposite directions: hers is tilted backwards glass windscreen. The lines are also used as a as though reacting to the movement of the formal device, emphasising the picture plane speeding car. His leans forward, casting a sly and creating distance between the viewer and glance to gauge her reaction, and perhaps the subject. viewer’s as he drives past.
The speed lines, besides signifying movement, In the Car was first displayed in Lichtenstein’s evoke the passing of time. We read the scene second solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli from left to right and these lines confirm the Gallery, New York from September 28 to direction that the car is moving, into and then October 24, 1963. Since 1980, it has become out of our vision. The frame acts as a film still one of the highlights of the collection at the or a snapshot that leaves us to imagine the National Gallery of Modern Art Scotland. It rest of the scene. By cropping the image and was purchased for £100,000, which was a suggesting that the woman’s hair flows outside considerable sum at the time. However, a its border, Lichtenstein reinforces this sense of smaller, slightly earlier version of In the Car capturing a fleeting moment. which had remained in the artist’s private collection, was sold by his son Mitchell at Christie’s, New York in 2005 for $16.2 million!
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ACTIVITIES
DRAMATISE WRITE DISCUSS a short dialogue between the driver and a story using this image as a starting point. the different textures that are suggested in passenger of the car. Who are these people? Where are they this painting. How does Lichtenstein evoke going? What is their relationship? Are there soft/hard materials? ADD A SOUNDTRACK! any other passengers in the back seat? You Lichtenstein loved music – what sounds could sketch and paint a story book. ROLE REVERSAL! or songs would you choose to play with Make a contemporary version of In the Car this painting? FIND with a female driver and male passenger. examples of artworks with people in cars Challenge the stereotypes – think about age, – eg Richard Hamilton, Swingeing London race and class for the occupants of your car. 1968–9; Peter Blake, Beach Boys 1964; Eberhard Grames, Boy in a Wrecked Car 1989; Walker Evans, Parked Car, Small Town 1932; Edward Hopper, Jo in Wyoming 1946. Compare and contrast them with Lichtenstein’s painting.
11 Roy Lichtenstein In Focus Teachers’ Pack GLOSSARY
BENDAY DOTS MAGNA POP ART a printing process using stencilled dots of a brand of acrylic resin paint, developed by movement originating in the 1950s which used equal size and distribution in order to create Leonard Bocour in 1947. Lichtenstein used this themes, imagery and styles of advertising, tonal areas and suggest shading or depth in an material for its quick dying qualities and high mass-media and popular culture. image. Named after Benjamin Day, the printer gloss finish. who devised the technique in 1879.
12 Roy Lichtenstein In Focus Teachers’ Pack FURTHER RESOURCES
Alloway, Lawrence, Roy Lichtenstein http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/ (Modern Masters), Abbeville Press Inc., 1983 exhibition/lichtenstein-retrospective
Dunne, Nathan, Lichtenstein, Tate Publishing, http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/ London, 2012 diagram-artist-roy-lichtenstein
Lanchner, Carolyn, Roy Lichtenstein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuxl2-XxPFs (MoMA Artist Series), Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o4CRsU07WI
McCarthy, David, Pop Art (Movements in Modern https://www.nationalgalleries.org/ Art Series) Tate Publishing, London, 2002 art-and-artists/664/car#more-Info
Rondeau, James, Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, Tate Publishing, London 2012
Sooke, Alistair, How Modern Art was Saved by Donald Duck
Walker, Lou Ann, Roy Lichtenstein: The Artist at Work, Dutton, New York, 1994
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