Roy Lichtenstein

ROY LICHTENSTEIN, Titled, 1996, serigraph.
Courtesy of Wells Fargo Art Collection, St. Louis, Missouri
©Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Landscape/Mindscape: Selections from the Wells Fargo Collection opened this weekend to an appreciative audience. many visitors were particularly interested in seeing a serigraph by Roy Lichtenstein.

Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997)   best known for his paintings that adapted the subject matter and style of comic books, as well as the dot patterning used to print them, was one of the pioneers of Pop Art.

During his early career he worked as a department store, window-display designer, an industrial designer, and a commercial art-instructor. By the late 1940s he began exhibiting his work in galleries throughout the U.S, continually exploring popular imagery and printmaking as a vehicle to reach wider audiences.

In the 1990s, he began to parody and reinterpret the styles and traditional subjects of noted artists, including Claude Monet and Paul Cezanne. He once remarked that he wanted to recreate these famous styles and subjects entirely in dots in order to make them look “machine made.”

Lichtenstein making benday dots

Roy Lichtenstein by Dennis Hopper