Lichtenstein, << LIHK tuhn styn, >> Roy (1923-1997), an American painter, was one of the first artists in the Pop Art movement. During the early 1950’s, Lichtenstein became interested in mass-produced commercial illustrations, especially comic strips and advertisements. He began to isolate single products and single frames of comic strips on a large canvas surface. He thus drew attention to the most common pictorial images in daily life and made them the subjects of art. Many of Lichtenstein’s comic strip paintings include words used to describe sounds or a portion of dialogue.
Lichtenstein eliminated visible brushstrokes from his painting surface. He also tried to duplicate the grainy pattern of newsprint. His paintings are composed of regularly spaced dots of mostly primary colors on white backgrounds with black outlines. As his style developed, Lichtenstein adopted other subjects, such as other artists’ paintings, Greek temples, and sunsets. He also began to create sculptures and prints in his painting style. He was born on Oct. 23, 1923, in New York City. He died on Sept. 29, 1997.
