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“The work are teeming with sudden wit”
The pioneering US Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein was born 100 years in the past this autumn and centennial celebrations will proceed into subsequent spring with an exhibition on the Albertina museum in Vienna and in 2026 with a significant survey on the Whitney Museum of American Artwork. This month, Gagosian in New York is internet hosting an exhibition of Lichtenstein’s sculptures curated by the artwork supplier Irving Blum. The accompanying catalogue features a dialog between the artist and Blum, in addition to a brief essay from the actor and collector Steve Martin. Blum has picked 5 key books for readers who wish to know extra about Lichtenstein’s life and work.
Irving Blum and Roy Lichtenstein in Los Angeles in 1968 © Malcolm Lubliner. Courtesy of Malcolm Lubliner and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, California
Roy Lichtenstein: Pop Masterpieces 1961-1964 (1987) by Roy Lichtenstein
“The title says all of it! In 1963, 24 years earlier than this was printed, I opened my first exhibition of his work at Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. This yr we’re celebrating what would have been Roy’s one hundredth birthday. His works really feel as contemporary, necessary and thought-provoking at present as they did in 1963.”
The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné 1948-1993 (1994) by Mary Lee Corlett and Ruth E. Wonderful
“Making prints got here naturally to Roy. He had an awesome graphic sensibility and this complete ebook illustrates the brilliance of his printmaking. He devoted himself critically to the craft sooner than every other main artist of his era and is extensively acknowledged as one of the vital necessary printmakers of our time.”
Roy Lichtenstein: The Mirror Work (1989), edited by Mary Boone Gallery
“Roy’s Mirror collection is amongst his most profitable discourses thus far on the notion of actuality and phantasm. The work are teeming with sudden wit. On this group of work representing a mirror, Roy provides us simply sufficient data to recognise what additional complicates the difficulty of illusionism.”
Roy Lichtenstein (1993), edited by Diane Waldman
“A celebrated retrospective in 1993 on the Guggenheim was an encyclopaedic journey of Roy’s profession up till then. The essays all through {the catalogue} are impressed, academic and can assist readers join the dots on his multi-layered profession. This centered take a look at Roy’s work reinforces why he continues to be one of the vital necessary artists of the twentieth century and reminds us of the breadth of his physique of labor.”
Roy Lichtenstein (October Recordsdata) (2009), with contributors together with Yve-Alain Bois, John Coplans and Max Kozloff
“This informative assemblage of writings is comprised of very early opinions and interviews. The transcript of the 1995 slide presentation, wherein Lichtenstein surveyed three many years of his work, and an in-depth examine of his first pop portray, Look Mickey (1961), are significantly necessary.”
• Lichtenstein Remembered, Gagosian, 188pp, $100 (hb)
• Lichtenstein Remembered: Curated by Irving Blum, Gagosian, New York, 9 September-21 October
