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: Acrylic, oil, graphite pencil on canvas (three joined 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.
Monumental Paintings of the 60's
- San Diego, Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, 1974-04-19 to 1974-06-23
Roy Lichtenstein, 1972
- Contemporary Arts Museum (Houston, Tex.), 1972-06-21 to 1972-08-20
Expo '67
- Montreal, United States Pavillion, 1967-04-28 to 1967-10-27
4. Documenta Kassel '68
- Orangerie-Auepark, Museum Fridericianum, Galerie-Schone Aussicht, 1968-06-27 to 1968-10-06
Painting in New York: 1944 to 1969
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1969-11-24 to 1970-01-11
American Art of the 1950s and 1960s from the Collection of the Norton Simon Museum
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1988-08-11 to 1994-04-03
Recent Acquisitions, 1969
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1969-11-24 to 1970-01-18
Pop Culture!
- Norton Simon Museum, 2001-11-16 to 2002-02-11
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
Selections from the Permanent Collection
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1971-07-13 to 1971-09-19
Radical Past: Contemporary Art and Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974
- Norton Simon Museum, 1999-02-07 to 1999-06-06
- Armory Center for the Arts, 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-11
- Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, Calif.), 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-25
- Register, Kathy, Pasadena Star-News, pp. A-1, A-5
- Pasadena Art Museum, Recent Acquisitions 1969, 1969, no. 11 pp. 8-9
- Solomon, Alan, Painting in New York: 1944 to 1969, 1969, no. 17 pp. 30-31
- Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, Monumental Paintings of the 60s, 1974, repro.
- Armory Center for the Arts/Art Center College of Design, Radical Past: Contemporary Art & Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974, 1999, pp. 6, 12
- Art Center College of Design, Art Center College of Design Exhibitions: Twenty Years, 2001, pp. 42-43
- Roy Lichtenstein: Times Square Mural, 2002, p. 56
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