On the occasion of his 100th birthday, the ALBERTINA Museum is celebrating the master of Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997, New York), with a comprehensive retrospective that brings together over 90 paintings, sculptures and prints. Alongside Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein is one of the founding figures of Pop Art and the one who combined Low Art and High Art.
Thanks to generous loans from 30 international museums, the most important works from his extensive oeuvre will travel to Vienna from all over the world, including the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum, the National Gallery, Washington, the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, the Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. The idea for this exhibition was born together with the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation on the occasion of a generous donation of around 100 works to the ALBERTINA Museum.
Roy Lichtenstein, Thinking of Him, 1963, acrylic on canvas, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Gift of Richard Brown Baker © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/Bildrecht, Vienna 2024, Photo: Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
Roy Lichtenstein is known for his clichéd blondes, war heroes and comic figures with speech bubbles. With bright, vibrant colors, clear lines and the characteristic Ben-Day dots that imitated the cheap printing technique of comics, he shaped the American art scene in the 1960s with his cartoon aesthetic.
The exhibition starts with early works from the 1960s, including two icons of the era: Look Mickey and Popeye, who will be on display together for the first time in decades. The exhibition also presents Lichtenstein's iconic paintings of product advertising objects in black and white, as well as landscapes in enamel technique and art-by-art pictures after Picasso, Dalì, Kirchner and Pollock. A particular highlight is a huge brushstroke sculpture that leaves the canvas and conquers the room.
Together with Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein is one of the most influential and important American artists of the 20th century.
March 8 to July 14, 2024
www.albertina.at
Roy Lichtenstein, Glass and Lemon before a Mirror, 1974, oil and magna on canvas, ALBERTINA, Vienna - Batliner Collection © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/Bildrecht, Vienna 2024
