NARRATOR:
After an early career in commercial art, Roy Lichtenstein developed an approach to painting that borrowed subject matter and style from comic strips and advertising. He used broad planes of red, blue, yellow, white and black, all bounded by regular, sharp-edged lines. Shading was done with benday dots, reflecting a printing process that uses screens punched with dot patterns of varying densities. The benday method was invented to allow inexpensive, mass-printing of pictures and comic strips. Lichtenstein turns the idea on its head by mimicking it in a painting done by hand.
In this three-panel work, he applies his famous approach to a decorative arrangement of circles, cones, bars and triangles reminiscent of Art Deco, an ornamental style popular in the 1920s and 30s. In the late 1960s, Lichtenstein created numerous works referring to other artists, such as Picasso and Monet, and earlier styles, including Cubism and Surrealism. The title of this work, Big Modern Painting, describes exactly what we are looking at. “What you see is what you get,” Lichtenstein seems to say, wryly commenting on the public’s expectations for contemporary art in the 1960s.
Lichtenstein made Big Modern Painting for Expo ’67, the world exposition held in Montreal. It comes from his “Modern Series”—the Norton Simon owns his Long Modern Sculpture too.
Big Modern Painting for Expo '67
1967
Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997)
Not on View
Lichtenstein found inspiration for his imagery in daily life, referencing a broad range of subjects in his work, including advertising, comic strips, consumer goods, spirituality, violence, and romance. Big Modern Painting is an example from the artist's "Modern" series, begun in 1966. This body of work takes a nostalgic look back at Art Deco, a distinct artistic style popular in America and Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. The Modern works contain the most significant and recurring design elements characteristic of this period, including circles, semicircles, squares, and triangles.
Details
- Artist Name: Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997)
- Title: Big Modern Painting for Expo '67
- Date: 1967
- Medium: Oil and Magna on canvas, 3 panels
- Dimensions: 360 x 120 in. (914.4 x 304.8 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of the Artist and Mr. Leo Castelli
- Accession Number: P.1967.22a-c
- Copyright: © 2008 Estate of Roy Lichtenstein
Object Information
Roy Lichtenstein and [Leo Castelli, New York, gift 1967 to];
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1967-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 1975.
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1967-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 1975.
4. Documenta Kassel '68
- Orangerie-Auepark, Museum Fridericianum, Galerie-Schone Aussicht, 1968-06-27 to 1968-10-06
- Armory Center for the Arts/Art Center College of Design, Radical Past: Contemporary Art & Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974, pp. 6, 12
- Solomon, Alan, Painting in New York: 1944 to 1969,no. 17 pp. 30-31
- Art Center College of Design, Art Center College of Design Exhibitions: Twenty Years, pp. 42-43
- Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, Monumental Paintings of the 60s, repro.
- Register, Kathy, Pasadena Star-News, pp. A-1, A-5
- Roy Lichtenstein: Times Square Mural, p. 56
- Pasadena Art Museum, Recent Acquisitions 1969,no. 11 pp. 8-9
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