ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997) Reflections on C

Provenance
Galerie Beyler, Basel;
Private Collection

Exhibited
Basel, Galerie Beyler, Roy Lichtenstein /Frank Stella, March-May, 1991, n.p. (Illustrated);
Basel, Galerie Beyler, New York, June-October 1993, cat. no. 42;
This work was additionally exhibited at the Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris;
Galerie Hans Strelow, Düsseldorf and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg between the years 1991 and 1995;
Los Angeles, Ace Gallery, American Painting, 2004

In the notorious marriage of a wholly radical subject matter with the methods of fine art, Roy Lichtenstein brought both a visual and intellectual level of consciousness, an awareness of the American lifestyle and brilliantly proclaimed the comic strip as a fitting theme for the new American painting of the 1960s. He is irrevocably associated with the comic books that he quoted in his paintings between 1961 and 1965 and emerged as one of the leading figures of the American Pop art movement. While the comics provided a basis for his strong black outlines and narrow range of colors, and famous Ben Day dots, they were more than a fund of imagery; they were also a source of systematic technique. Lichtenstein's comic book paintings were symptomatic of a growing interest in the banal, everyday artifacts of contemporary culture. Numerous other artists, including Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist and Claes Oldenburg, began turning to comparable subjects at this same time. Perhaps more than any other Pop artist, Lichtenstein critically examined how the mass media floods contemporary society with an overabundance of signs and images, and consequently affects our daily experience of reality.

In the late 1980s, Lichtenstein closed the decade with a series of Reflections, which incorporated his appropriation of all or part of the imagery in earlier painting with motifs of the Mirror series spliced into it. In the Mirror series of paintings, Lichtenstein applied color, line, and Ben Day dots to create the illusion and rippling effect of reflections. The Reflections based on his own earlier paintings refer to either specific work, such as Reflections on Interior With Girl Drawing or Reflections: VIP! VIP!, or alternatively, refer to specific ideas in earlier works, such as the present lot Reflections on Crash, which seems to draw on many of Lichtenstein's earlier paintings, such as Whamm, 1963 and As I Opened Fire, 1962. Reflections on Crash captures the epic quality of Lichtenstein's famous war paintings, of explosions in the air between fighter planes. Although not intended as a series per se, the war paintings have a coherence and familial relationship as a result of the heightened action and charged emotion of the subjects. They are the most aggressive of Lichtenstein's images. Moreover, in these paintings, Lichtenstein continually focused on close-up images, drastically cropped and enlarged to heighten the drama; which is very apparent in Reflections on Crash, where the large figure of the pilot dominates the framework of the image but the supporting incidents are so completely a part of the overall arrangement that their placement behind the main figure causes little concern.

In Lichtenstein's Reflections on Crash, the focal point of the action centers on the word crash, surrounded by bright yellow and red exploding clouds. These clouds appearing to be frond-like flames shooting out form the explosion are highly ornamental in character in contrast to the more straightforward image of pilot and airplanes, which carry the burden of narrative. The Pilot in profile is, comprised of Ben Day dots and thick black outline; his eyes peer upward. His brow is furrowed, forehead crinkled, and his mouth apprehensive. His eyes seem to look intently upon a small fighter pilot who leaves the word 'crash' and the explosion behind him as he flies off toward the horizon over a mountainous landscape of yellow brushstrokes and maroon Ben Day dots.

As two seemingly lightening bolts, apparent quotations from his Mirror series, slash down the work, Lichtenstein emphasizes the word crash and creates a maximum pressure which appears to explode around the work, heightening its intensity. Moreover Lichtenstein accentuates the relationship between the way words sound and their visual equivalent. The explosion dominates the middle of the composition, and the face of a fighter pilot, looks up menacingly at the word. The total composition jammed with images, that are composed into an intricate pattern of interlocking forms, creating a composition of powerful complexity. The fact that words, directional in syntax and specific in reference, denote events in one way, and visual images, immediately present and spatially simultaneous, do it in another way was continually on Lichtenstein's mind. In fact, the multiple levels of signification recur throughout his work as does the layering of diversified visual elements. Lichtenstein is not a collage artist, but his artwork contains quotations from his own work, from other artists, and from other styles and is full of allusions. Through these formal and conceptual conventions Lichtenstein creates a visually arresting work charged with energy, color and form that testifies to the genius of his unique syntax.