Part II: Roy Lichtenstein's Retrospective @ The Art Institute of Chicago

Lichtenstein Carefully Crafts His Masterpieces

Aug. 10, 2012

7:43 p.m.

Recently viewed at the exceptional "Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective" at the Art Institute of Chicago, his paintings demonstrates that Lichtenstein carefully crafted all his forward looking masterpieces despite appearances to the contrary. On display in a small gallery inside the exhibition, the Art Institute exhibits his “works on paper,” which explains how the artist painted his dots for his incredibly detailed paintings, a tribute to the intellectual study that inhabited his outward displays on canvas. Often the Pop Art artist used graphite and colored pencil studies for larger works, including his Entablatures, painted during the years 1971 through 1976. Two grand examples of his Entablatures command the sky-high lobby space before the main exhibition gallery on the second floor that opens the retrospective. Monumental scale, entire wall images merge classical architecture researched from historical and institutional buildings that illustrate his definition of “minimal line to express maximum information.” Another small colored pencil and graphite drawing on vellum titled Mermaid Sailboat (1994) provokes imaginative and playful images that reference Greek mythology and sea legends. A delightful mermaid curls around the tiny boats hull while sunlight radiates over the water and the boat\'s journey to demonstrate Lichtenstein\'s inventive art vocabulary. <o:p /> The expansive exhibition also includes Lichtenstien\'s sculptures such as Archaic Head, an elegant contour profile placed on a round pedestal he designed with Greek dentil molding. Close by in an adjacent gallery, his grand sculptures use form and composition like the fluid rhythms moving through American jazz commissioned for New York\'s Lincoln Center and Radio City Hall. Each sculpture captures Art Deco ornament in tribute to these prominent theaters seen in his Modern Sculpture with Velvet Rope (1966-1974). <o:p /> The final pieces in this retrospective refer back to Lichtenstein\'s female comic book characters portrayed as the classical nude culled from ancient art history, his composite figures placed together in his modern scenarios. Often painted without the heavy black outlines associated with Lichtenstein\'s work completed during his last years, 1994-1997. These provocative pieces were realized in such work as his Nudes with Beach Ball, (1994).<o:p /> Before he died in 1997, did Lichtenstein ever appreciate the volumes these paintings communicate about mass cultural references that were still being invented, even predating the technological revolution in his masterpieces of Pop Art? Artworks that while picturing the print process Lichtenstein illustrated by hand, would eventually resonate with culture over decades? Contemporary culture perseverates over every personal detail of someone in the public eye: President Obama, Mitt Romney, Michael Phelps, or the new teenage gymnast Gabby Douglas (even debating the Olympian\'s hairdo) to the latest movie star or television personality. As well as the common ordinary person who reveals every personal thought on a Facebook or twitter account for public consumption. Culture obsessed with break ups and supposed “romance,” violence and war or shootings in unnatural places such a movie theaters and temples. Careless details filling the mind instead of pertinent information, careless details that might eventually explode in the mind like Lichtenstein\'s 1963 Varoom! image and replace any intelligent contemplation in the distant future. <o:p /> Just perhaps Lichtenstein could paint Pop Art to the nth degree, satirize the constantly changing technological advances. All the while still subtly expressing his belief in the hand made quality, the precision and production of human excellence through his paintings similar to his masterpieces now on exhibit and seen at the Art Institute through a fresh and vibrant light. Lichtenstein\'s artistic excellence that exemplified popular appropriation seen through precise repetition and fresh stylization used with insightful parody combined with his creative vision reads infinitely more prophetic from a 2012 perspective. Celebrate with Chicago and Lichtenstein by appreciating this eye-popping and marvelously modern retrospective through September 3.<o:p /> For further information visit: <a href=\"http://www.roy.artic.edu\">www.roy.artic.edu</a>, www,artic.edu, or www.artinstituteshop.org. .<o:p />

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