Color lithograph, heavyweight paper, 50 x 35 cm. Signed lower right: “Roy Lichtenstein” (from the stone), edition number 71/150 (pencil), Castelli Graphics, New York (stamp), Styria Studio (embossed mark).
Roy Lichtenstein—Initially, he painted in the style of abstract expressionism, which was then dominant in American art; his Pop Art breakthrough came in the early 1960s. It was then that he began painting popular characters from Disney cartoons. His first Pop Art painting, “Look Mickey,” was created in 1961. Soon, comic books, advertisements, and motifs from other artists’ paintings became his inspiration. He began exhibiting his first comic-inspired paintings at the Castelli Gallery in New York, which promoted Pop Art artists. In 1965, he represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. In the second half of the 1960s, he began creating the “Brushstrokes” series, which parodied Abstract Expressionism. In the 1970s and 1980s, he painted the abstract “Mirrors” series. In 1979, he became a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
