Editing Roy Lichtenstein (section)

=== Period of Lichtenstein's highest profile ===
[[File:Roy Lichtenstein Drowning Girl.jpg|thumb|right|''[[Drowning Girl]]'' (1963). On display at the [[Museum of Modern Art, New York]]]]
It was at this time that Lichtenstein began to find fame not just in America but worldwide. He moved back to New York to be at the center of the art scene and resigned from [[Rutgers University]] in 1964 to concentrate on his painting.<ref name="rlf-Hendrickson96">{{harvnb|Hendrickson |1988| p= 96 }}</ref> Lichtenstein used oil and [[Magna (paint)|Magna]] (early acrylic) paint in his best known works, such as ''[[Drowning Girl]]'' (1963), which was appropriated from the lead story in [[DC Comics]]' ''Secret Hearts'' No. 83, drawn by [[Tony Abruzzo]]. (''Drowning Girl'' now hangs in the [[Museum of Modern Art, New York]].<ref name="rlf-Hendrickson31">{{harvnb|Hendrickson| 1988| p= 31 }}</ref>) ''Drowning Girl'' also features thick outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots, as if created by photographic reproduction. Of his own work, Lichtenstein would say that the Abstract Expressionists "put things down on the canvas and responded to what they had done, to the color positions and sizes. My style looks completely different, but the nature of putting down lines pretty much is the same; mine just don't come out looking calligraphic, like [[Jackson Pollock|Pollock]]'s or [[Franz Kline|Kline]]'s."<ref>{{cite news
 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/30/arts/roy-lichtenstein-pop-master-dies-at-73.html
 |title=Roy Lichtenstein, Pop Master, Dies at 73
 |first=Michael
 |last=Kimmelman
 |date=September 30, 1997
|work=[[The New York Times]]
 |access-date=November 12, 2007
}}</ref>

Rather than attempt to reproduce his subjects, Lichtenstein's work tackled the way in which the mass media portrays them. However, he would never take himself too seriously, saying: "I think my work is different from comic strips – but I wouldn't call it transformation; I don't think that whatever is meant by it is important to art".<ref name="rlf-Coplans54">{{harvnb|Coplans|1972| p = 54 }}</ref> When Lichtenstein's work was first exhibited, many art critics of the time challenged its originality. His work was harshly criticized as vulgar and empty. The title of a ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine article in 1964 asked, "Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?"<ref>{{cite news|first=Carol |last=Vogel |date=April 5, 2012|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/arts/design/a-new-traveling-show-of-lichtenstein-works.html |title=A New Traveling Show of Lichtenstein Works|work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> Lichtenstein responded to such claims by offering responses such as the following: "The closer my work is to the original, the more threatening and critical the content. However, my work is entirely transformed in that my purpose and perception are entirely different. I think my paintings are critically transformed, but it would be difficult to prove it by any rational line of argument."<ref name="rlf-Coplans52">{{harvnb|Coplans|1972| p = 52 }}</ref> He discussed experiencing this heavy criticism in an interview with April Bernard and Mimi Thompson in 1986. Suggesting that it was at times difficult to be criticized, Lichtenstein said, "I don't doubt when I'm actually painting, it's the criticism that makes you wonder, it does."<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Bernard |first1=April |last2=Thompson |first2=Mimi |url=http://bombsite.com/issues/14/articles/726 |title=Roy Lichtenstein |magazine=[[BOMB Magazine]]|date=Winter 1986|access-date=July 14, 2011 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120720131625/http://bombsite.com/issues/14/articles/726 |archive-date=July 20, 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Lichtenstein's celebrated image ''[[Whaam!]]'' (1963) depicts a fighter aircraft firing a rocket into an enemy plane, with a red-and-yellow explosion. The cartoon style is heightened by the use of the [[onomatopoeia|onomatopoeic]] 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&nbsp;ft 7 in x 13&nbsp;ft 4 in).<ref name=Tate_Whaam>{{cite web
 |url=http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=8782
 |work=Tate Collection
 |title=Whaam!
 |first=Roy
 |last=Lichtenstein
 |access-date=January 27, 2008
}}</ref> ''Whaam'' follows the comic strip-based themes of some of his previous paintings and is part of a body of war-themed work created between 1962 and 1964. It is one of his two notable large war-themed paintings. It was purchased by the [[Tate]] Gallery in 1966, after being exhibited at the [[Leo Castelli]] Gallery in 1963, and (now at the Tate Modern) has remained in their collection ever since. In 1968, the [[Darmstadt]] entrepreneur Karl Ströher acquired several major works by Lichtenstein, such as ''Nurse'' (1964), ''Compositions I'' (1964), ''[[We Rose Up Slowly|We rose up slowly]]'' (1964) and ''[[Yellow and Green Brushstrokes]]'' (1966). After being on loan at the [[Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt|Hessiches Landesmuseum Darmstadt]] for several years, the founding director of the [[Museum für Moderne Kunst]] Frankfurt, [[Peter Iden]], was able to acquire a total of 87 works<ref>[[Peter Iden|Iden, Peter]], [[Rolf Lauter|Lauter, Rolf]] (ed.), ''Bilder für Frankfurt'', Bestandskatalog Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main 1985, cover image, pp 82–83, 176–178. {{ISBN|978-3-7913-0702-2}}.</ref> from the Ströher collection<ref>[[Rolf Lauter|Lauter, Rolf]]. ''Das Museum für Moderne Kunst und die Sammlung Ströher. Zur Geschichte einer Privatsammlung'', MMK in der Galerie Jahrhunderthalle Hoechst, Frankfurt am Main 1994, {{ISBN|3-7973-0585-0}}</ref> in 1981, primarily American Pop Art and Minimal Art for the museum under construction until 1991.<ref name="mmk_stroeher">{{cite web | url=https://collection.mmk.art/en/collection-stroeher/ | title=Collection Ströher | publisher=MUSEUM<sup>MMK</sup> für Moderne Kunst | work=mmk.art | accessdate=21 April 2024 | quote=The eighty-seven works from the former collection of Karl Ströher, an industrialist of Darmstadt, form the core of the museum’s collection. Acquired by the city of Frankfurt in 1981‒82, they were a determining factor in the founding of the MMK. Ströher’s collection was in turn based on the former collection of the New York insurance broker Leon Kraushar. Most of the works date from the 1960s and represent the American Pop Art and Minimalist currents. They include workgroups by such artists as Carl Andre, Francis Bacon, Walter De Maria, Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly or Andy Warhol, as well as German artists of the period, among them Blinky Palermo, Gerhard Richter, Reiner Ruthenbeck and Franz Erhard Walther.}}</ref>

Lichtenstein began experimenting with sculpture around 1964, demonstrating a knack for the form that was at odds with the insistent flatness of his paintings. For ''Head of Girl'' (1964), and ''Head with Red Shadow'' (1965), Lichtenstein collaborated with a ceramicist who sculpted the form of the head out of clay. He then applied a glaze to create the same sort of graphic motifs that he used in his paintings; the application of black lines and Ben-Day dots to three-dimensional objects resulted in a flattening of the form.<ref>Lucy Davies (November 17, 2008), [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3563299/Roy-Lichtenstein-a-new-dimension-in-art.html# Roy Lichtenstein: a new dimension in art] ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''.</ref>

Most of Lichtenstein's best-known works are relatively close, but not exact, copies of comic book panels, a subject he largely abandoned in 1965, though he would occasionally incorporate comics into his work in different ways in later decades. These panels were originally drawn by such comics artists as [[Jack Kirby]] and [[DC Comics]] artists [[Russ Heath]], Tony Abruzzo, [[Irv Novick]], and [[Jerry Grandenetti]], who rarely received any credit. [[Jack Cowart]], executive director of the Lichtenstein Foundation, contests the notion that Lichtenstein was a copyist, saying: "Roy's work was a wonderment of the graphic formulae and the codification of sentiment that had been worked out by others. The panels were changed in scale, color, treatment, and in their implications. There is no exact copy."<ref name="boston">{{cite news | last = Beam | first = Alex | title = Lichtenstein: creator or copycat? |work=Boston Globe  | date = October 18, 2006 | url = http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/10/18/lichtenstein_creator_or_copycat/ | access-date =July 16, 2007 }}</ref> However, some<ref name=publishersweekly_spiegelman>{{cite web
 |url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/406197-Spiegelman_Goes_to_College.php
 |work=Publishers Weekly
 |title=Art Spiegelman Goes to College
 |first=Peter
 |last=Sanderson
 |access-date=March 26, 2010
|date=April 24, 2007
}}</ref> have been critical of Lichtenstein's use of comic-book imagery and art pieces, especially insofar as that use has been seen as endorsement of a patronizing view of comics by the art mainstream;<ref name=publishersweekly_spiegelman /> cartoonist [[Art Spiegelman]] commented that "Lichtenstein did no more or less for comics than [[Andy Warhol]] did for soup."<ref name=publishersweekly_spiegelman />

Lichtenstein's works based on enlarged panels from comic books engendered a widespread debate about their merits as art.<ref name="PApRLda7">{{cite news|url=https://apnews.com/43b85ac8a5a6ab361d2adb164e6a10ce|title=Pop Art pioneer Roy Lichtenstein dead at 73|access-date=June 15, 2013|date=September 29, 1997|work=[[Associated Press]]|last=Monroe|first=Robert}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/lifemagroy.htm|title=Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?|access-date=June 10, 2013|date=January 31, 1964|magazine=[[Life (magazine)|Life]]|publisher=LichtensteinFoundation.org|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104111859/http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/lifemagroy.htm|archive-date=November 4, 2013}}</ref> Lichtenstein himself admitted, "I am nominally copying, but I am really restating the copied thing in other terms. In doing that, the original acquires a totally different texture. It isn't thick or thin brushstrokes, it's dots and flat colours and unyielding lines."<ref name=W>{{cite journal|url=http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/wow|title=WOW!, Lichtenstein: A Retrospective at Tate Modern II|last=Dunne|first=Nathan|journal=Tate Etc.|issue=27: Spring 2013|date=May 13, 2013}}</ref> [[Eddie Campbell]] blogged that "Lichtenstein took a tiny picture, smaller than the palm of the hand, printed in four color inks on newsprint and blew it up to the conventional size at which 'art' is made and exhibited and finished it in paint on canvas."<ref name=L>{{cite web|url=http://eddiecampbell.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/lichtenstein_04.html|title=Lichtenstein|access-date=July 28, 2013|date=February 4, 2007|last=Campbell |first=Eddie}}</ref> With regard to Lichtenstein, [[Bill Griffith]] once said, "There's high art and there's low art. And then there's high art that can take low art, bring it into a high art context, appropriate it and elevate it into something else."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v1_2/griffith/|title=Still asking, "Are we having fun yet?"|access-date=July 28, 2013|year=2003|last=Griffith|first=Bill|work=Interdisciplinary Comics Studies|volume=1|issue=2|publisher=Image TexT/[[University of Florida]]}}</ref>

Although Lichtenstein's comic-based work gained some acceptance, concerns are still expressed by critics who say Lichtenstein did not credit, pay any royalties to, or seek permission from the original artists or copyright holders.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/may/image-duplicator-pop-arts-comic-theft|title=Image Duplicator: pop art's comic debt|access-date=June 18, 2013|date=May 13, 2013|last=Steven|first=Rachael|work=[[Creative Review]]|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002013823/http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/may/image-duplicator-pop-arts-comic-theft|archive-date=October 2, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/02/02/deconstructing-lichtenstein-source-comics-revealed-and-credited/ |title=Deconstructing Lichtenstein: Source Comics Revealed and Credited |access-date=June 23, 2013 |date=February 2, 2011 |last=Childs |first=Brian |publisher=Comics Alliance |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130112223049/http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/02/02/deconstructing-lichtenstein-source-comics-revealed-and-credited/ |archive-date=January 12, 2013 }}</ref> In an interview for a [[BBC Four]] documentary in 2013, [[Alastair Sooke]] asked the comic book artist [[Dave Gibbons]] if he considered Lichtenstein a plagiarist. Gibbons replied: "I would say 'copycat'. In music for instance, you can't just whistle somebody else's tune or perform somebody else's tune, no matter how badly, without somehow crediting and giving payment to the original artist. That's to say, this is 'WHAAM! by Roy Lichtenstein, after Irv Novick'."<ref name="TPoL">{{cite web|url=http://paulgravett.com/index.php/articles/article/the_principality_of_lichtenstein|title=The Principality of Lichtenstein: From 'WHAAM!' to 'WHAAT?'|access-date=June 30, 2013|date=March 17, 2013|last=Gravett|first=Paul|publisher=PaulGravett.com}}</ref> Sooke himself maintains that "Lichtenstein transformed Novick's artwork in a number of subtle but crucial ways."<ref name="www.bbc.com 20130717-pop-artist-or-copy-cat">{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20130717-pop-artist-or-copy-cat|publisher=BBC Culture|access-date=July 19, 2013|date=July 17, 2013|title=Is Lichtenstein a great modern artist or a copy cat?|last=Sooke|first=Alistair}}</ref>

[[City University London]] lecturer Ernesto Priego notes that Lichtenstein's failure to credit the original creators of his comic works was a reflection on the decision by [[National Periodical Publications]], the predecessor of [[DC Comics]], to omit any credit for their writers and artists:
{{Blockquote|text=Besides embodying the cultural prejudice against comic books as vehicles of art, examples like Lichtenstein's appropriation of the vocabulary of comics highlight the importance of taking publication format in consideration when defining comics, as well as the political economy implied by specific types of historical publications, in this case the American mainstream comic book. To what extent was National Periodical Publications (later DC) responsible for the rejection of the roles of Kanigher and Novick as artists in their own right by not granting them full authorial credit on the publication itself?"<ref name=WBaFS>{{cite web|url=http://blog.comicsgrid.com/2011/04/whaam-becoming-a-flaming-star/|title=Whaam! Becoming a Flaming Star|access-date=July 28, 2013|date=April 4, 2011|last=Priego|first=Ernesto|work=[[The Comics Grid, Journal of Comics Scholarship]]|volume=1|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002102214/http://blog.comicsgrid.com/2011/04/whaam-becoming-a-flaming-star/|archive-date=October 2, 2013|df=mdy-all}}</ref>}}
Furthermore, Campbell notes that there was a time when comic artists often declined attribution for their work.<ref name=L />

In an account published in 1998, Novick said that he had met Lichtenstein in the army in 1947 and, as his superior officer, had responded to Lichtenstein's tearful complaints about the menial tasks he was assigned by recommending him for a better job.<ref name="Beaty" /> Jean-Paul Gabilliet has questioned this account, saying that Lichtenstein had left the army a year before the time Novick says the incident took place.<ref>{{cite book| last = Gabilliet| first = Jean-Paul| title = Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=J1t8g_yX1wcC&pg=PA350| year = 2009| publisher = [[University Press of Mississippi]]| isbn = 978-1-60473-267-2| page = 350 }}</ref> Bart Beaty, noting that Lichtenstein had appropriated Novick for works such as ''Whaam!'' and ''[[Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!]]'', says that Novick's story "seems to be an attempt to personally diminish" the more famous artist.<ref name="Beaty">{{cite journal|url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/crv/summary/v034/34.3beaty.html|title=Roy Lichtenstein's Tears: Art vs. Pop in American Culture|access-date=June 30, 2013|volume=34|issue=3|year=2004|last=Beaty|first=Bart|journal=[[Canadian Review of American Studies]]|pages=249–268}}</ref>

In 1966, Lichtenstein moved on from his much-celebrated imagery of the early 1960s, and began his ''Modern Paintings'' series, including over 60 paintings and accompanying drawings. Using his characteristic Ben-Day dots and geometric shapes and lines, he rendered incongruous, challenging images out of familiar architectural structures, patterns borrowed from [[Art Déco]] and other subtly evocative, often sequential, motifs.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} The ''Modern Sculpture'' series of 1967–8 made reference to motifs from Art Déco architecture.<ref name="moma">[http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3542 Roy Lichtenstein] Museum of Modern Art, New York.</ref>