Roy Lichtenstein (October 27, 1923 - September 29, 1997) was a prominent American pop artist, whose work borrowed heavily from popular advertising and comic book styles, which he himself described as being "as artificial as possible." Using oil and Magna paint his best known works, such as Drowning Girl (1963), feature thick outlines, bold colors and Benday Dots to represent certain colors, as if created by photographic reproduction. Rather than attempt to reproduce his subjects, his work tackles the way mass media portrays them.

His most famous image is arguably Whaam! (1963, Tate Gallery, London), one of the earliest known examples of pop art, featuring a fighter aircraft firing a rocket into an enemy plane with a dazzling red and yellow explosion. The cartoon style is heightened by the use of the onomatopoetic lettering WHAAM! and the boxed caption "I pressed the fire control... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky..." This diptych is large in scale, measuring 1.7 x 4.0 m (5'7" x 13'4").

In addition to paintings, he also made sculptures in metal and plastic.

Lichtenstein was born in Manhattan in New York City, and died there. He studied at Ohio State University where he also taught for five years between 1946 and 1951. He also taught at Rutgers University between 1960 and 1964.

External link

• Roy Lichtenstein Foundation (http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/)
• http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/1892/lang/1

actual exhibitions with Roy Lichtenstein worldwide

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