Lichtenstein and Warhol – Pop Art from the Collection

August 4 – December 23, 2020

Lichtenstein and Warhol: Pop Art from the Collection features a selection of screenprints by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as an assortment of Warhol’s Polaroid photographs. Known as leading figures of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Warhol and Lichtenstein are celebrated for exploring the relationship between fine art, advertising, and consumerism.

Warhol’s screenprint Flowers, 1970, marks a sharp, yet refreshing departure from the artist’s typical depictions of consumer items. Four flowers composed of bright and bold orange, yellow, and purple sit on a bed of abstract grass. Warhol experimented with the silkscreen process by layering imagery with different color combinations to achieve his vision of unidentifiable hibiscus flowers in order to create an air of mystery.

Polaroid photographs of prominent celebrities, such as Farrah Fawcett, Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West), and Jack Nicklaus, were often used as source material for Warhol’s more complete screenprints. They serve as a testimony to his ability to find beauty within all he encountered. The photographs capture each celebrity at a moment of vulnerability and strip down their layers of glamour to showcase a heightened realism only a camera could record.

Reverie, 1965, by Lichtenstein is characteristic of his renowned comic book style as a woman’s face layered with Benday dots sings longingly for her lover. What was meant to be a testament to the artist’s love for jazz transforms into a piece that highlights how Pop Art, in the form of a comic strip, can fit in with fine art.

Although each addressed the Pop Art movement in disparate ways, Warhol and Lichtenstein were united in the way they assimilated commercial culture with fine art approaches. Exhibited together, these works create an environment where popular imagery is elevated to the realm of high art.

 

Caroline Strolic
Curatorial Intern

 

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (American, 1923 – 1997). Reverie, 1965. Screenprint on paper. Bequest of Robert Venn Carr Jr., Class of 1938

 

ANDY WARHOL (American, 1928 – 1987). Flowers, 1970. Screenprint on paper. Gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Extra, out of the edition. Designated for research and educational purposes only.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.