Next page in your notebook Roy Lichtenstein Next page in your notebook

Pop Art portrays things from popular culture Pop Art portrays things from popular culture. That’s why it’s called Pop Art Pop Art began in the 1950s, but became very popular in the 1960s. It started in the United Kingdom, but became a true art movement in New York City with artists like Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. pOP aRT

Television and Commercials made ordinary objects seem extraordinary! Other Pop Art Influences Fast Food restaurants in the 1950’s turned sandwiches into a mass-produced item Television and Commercials made ordinary objects seem extraordinary! …Pop Art thus creates the beginnings of POSTMODERNISM

rOY LICHTENSTEIN Roy Lichtenstein was born in 1923 in New York. He went to a high school that did not offer art classes but he liked to draw and did so in his free time. After high school, Lichtenstein went to Ohio State University where he earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in fine art. rOY LICHTENSTEIN

Roy Lichtenstein Created art with a COMIC-BOOK style Colors are basic, black-outlined Skin colors created with BENDAY DOTS… Just like the COMIC BOOKS!

Roy Lichtenstein His studies were interrupted by a three year stint in the army during and after World War II between 1943 and 1946. Lichtenstein returned home to visit his dying father and was discharged from the army under the G.I. Bill.

In 1961, Lichtenstein created his first Pop Art painting. He liked the way commercial art looked and he liked the sharp, black outlines in comic book art. The Pop paintings he is known for combined the two styles.

His first work to feature the large-scale use of hard-edged figures and Benday Dots was Look Mickey (1961, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). This piece came from a challenge from one of his sons, who pointed to a Mickey Mouse comic book and said; "I bet you can't paint as good as that, eh, Dad?" In the same year he produced six other works with recognizable characters from gum wrappers and cartoons.

Look Mickey 1961

Ben-Day Dots The Ben-Day Dots printing process, named after illustrator and printer Benjamin Day, is similar to Pointillism. Depending on the effect, color and optical illusion needed, small colored dots are closely-spaced, widely-spaced or overlapping. Magenta dots, for example, are widely-spaced to create pink. 1950s and 1960s pulp comic books used Ben-Day dots in the four process colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to inexpensively create shading and secondary colors such as green, purple, orange and flesh tones. Ben-Day dots differ from halftone dots in that the Ben-Day dots are always of equal size and distribution in a specific area. To apply the dots to a drawing the artist would purchase transparent overlay sheets from a stationery supplier. The sheets were available in a wide variety of dot size and distribution, which gave the artist a range of tones to use in the work. The overlay material was cut in the shapes of the tonal areas desired—i.e. shadow or background or surface treatment and rubbed onto the specific areas of the drawing with a burnisher. When photographically reproduced as a line cut for letterpress printing, the areas of Ben-Day overlay provided tonal shading to the printing plate.

Thick, Horizontal Stripes. Benday Dots. Benday Dots were originally used for printing pictures inexpensively. You’ll notice that the faces of the people in many of his paintings are made up of Benday Dots.

Lichtenstein used oil and Magna paint in his best known works, such as Drowning Girl (1963), which was appropriated from the lead story in DC Comics' Secret Hearts #83. (Drowning Girl now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.) Also featuring 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 tackled the way mass media portrays them.

Drowning Girl 1963

His most famous image is arguably Whaam His most famous image is arguably Whaam! (1963, Tate Modern, London), one of the earliest known examples of pop art, adapted a comic-book panel from a 1962 issue of DC Comics' All-American Men of War. The painting 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 onomatopoeic lettering "Whaam!"

Whaam! 1963

Original comic book panel from All-American Men of War #89, 1962 (DC Comics)

In the late 1970s, this style was replaced with more surreal works such as Pow Wow. In 1977, he was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 5 Racing Version of the BMW 320i for the third installment in the BMW Art Car Project. In addition to paintings, he also made sculptures in metal and plastic including some notable public sculptures, and over 300 prints, mostly in screen-printing. His painting Torpedo...Los! sold at Christie's for $5.5 million in 1989, a record sum at the time, making him one of only three living artists to have attracted such huge sums.

The BMW Art Car Project was introduced by the French racecar driver and auctioneer , who wanted to invite an artist to create a canvas on an automobile. To date, a total of 16 BMW Art Cars, based on both racing and regular production vehicles, have been created.

BMW Art Car by Roy Lichtenstein 1977

BMW Art Car Warhol 1979

The Head (1992), Barcelona

He drew inspiration from cartoons, newspapers, advertisements, and things he saw in real life (like his art studio). He used this inspiration to create enormous paintings as well as sculptures. At first, critics didn’t like his work, but today Lichtenstein’s Pop Art can found in most museums that house modern art. Lichtenstein died in 1997.

oNOMATOPOEIA the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g., cuckoo, sizzle ).

Today… In your sketch pad Practice Bubble Letters If you do not have a sketch pad, do on computer paper THIS WILL HAVE TO BE DONE IN YOUR SKETCH PAD FOR A GRADE BUT YOU CANNOT SIT AND DO NOTHING Practice Bubble Letters DO YOUR NAME CHOOSE ONE WORD FOR YOUR PROJECT TO PRACTICE

Next Week SKETCH PADS SHARPIE PAPER TOWELS IF YOU HAVE NOT BROUGHT THEM IN! Bonus Items: *Red , Blue, Yellow, Black or White Acrylic Paint (Small – 2 points each/ Med- 10 points/ Large- 25 points) *pack of small paper plates (5 points) *paint brushes (5-15 points depending on how many!)