The genesis of Roy Lichtenstein: exhibit review
When the name Roy Lichtenstein is uttered, most people think of the artist who became famous for his comic-style pop art in the 1960s. Partnering with the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the Colby Museum of Art has put together an exhibition to tell a less er-known story : the artistic journey Lichtenstein took leading up to his break-out success. Roy Lichtenstein: History in the Making, 1948-1960 consists of nearly 90 of Lichtenstein’s works as he explored subjects like American exceptionalism, mythical archetypes, and the American West .
“I think it’s important to study Lichtenstein’s pre-pop output,” the Lunder Curator of American Art Elizabeth Finch says in a video component of the exhibition. “Because one of the things Lichtenstein knew is that we understand knowledge through stories. This is a story that needed to be told to understand him… So, we’re drawing that back to a different moment, to a moment when an artist born and raised in New York City actually went west, who did some thing kind of counterintuitive to what we might expect of the avant-garde, and found new material there.”
Lichtenstein was born in New York to an upper-middle class family. At the age of 17, he left the heart land of American art to study at the Ohio State University. There, he discovered motifs absent in the New York art world. His early works were profoundly influenced by his new home, with midwest cultural themes manifesting in “cowboy” and “Indian” themed works.
Lichtenstein joined the army during World War II, and his experiences under the G.I. Bill also influenced his artistic themes. He and his family then moved to New York facing financial pressures, where he began to move away from his early “medieval” American western works and towards abstraction.
The lower level of the Lichtenstein gallery displays his works from the later 1950s, in which he experimented with expressionism. He moved from the crude style of his earlier works towards more diverse methods. Several paintings in the exhibition were made by brightly coloring a bedsheet with paint and dragging it across a canvas. The exhibition ends on the precipice of Lichtenstein’s pop art movement.
Many of the exhibition’s works were curated with help f rom the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. Later in his career, Lichtenstein began collecting his earlier works and consolidating them. The Foundation now possesses about 600 of Lichtenstein’s works .
“What Roy thought about his early work has always been a question that’s amused us over the years.” Jack Cowart , Executive Director of the Foundation says in a video inter view included in the exhibit . “I knew Roy for 30 years, so I know he would have probably said numerous things about it. We’re still not quite sure. He was ambivalent, he was loyal to it. He re-collected it during his life time, he preserved it during his life time. I think he would be amused that we’re spending as much time studying this as we have been.”
For those interested in the pop art movement, the genesis of one of its leaders is on display in the upper and lower Jetté galleries in the Colby Museum. While it is currently only open to staff and students, interested community members can tune in to the Virtual Art & Conversation event online Thursday, Feb. 25 at 1 p.m.
~ Milo Lani-Caputo `23
