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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.
Roy Lichtenstein’s Salute to Painting (Study), 1986, is an iconic example of the artist’s “Brushstroke” series, and a window into the working methods of a master of Pop Art. Exploding onto the American art scene in the early 1960s alongside Andy Warhol, Lichtenstein transported the visual language of advertising and comic books into the realm of high art. In contrast to the prevailing Abstract Expressionist aesthetic, Lichtenstein’s brushstrokes were epoch making. Calculated, wry, and coolly sophisticated, they stand as a counterpart to the overly-serious paintings of the 1950s. With a direct reference to the loaded brush of stalwarts such as Willem de Kooning, Salutw to Painting pays homage to the art of the immediate past while opening a door towards the future. Critic Dave Hickey agrees, noting that Lichtenstein’s work “delivered the effect of high-style American painting coolly through efficacious means, and, in the process, delivered American art from the tyranny of anxious execution… from the assumption of psychological dysfunction and tragic destiny that had pervaded post-war practice” (D. Hickey, Roy Lichtenstein Brushstrokes: Four Decades, New York, 2001, p. 10).
Salute to Painting (Study) serves as a fitting coda to this investigation. Part of a series that includes a large-scale sculpture at the Walker Art Center in honor of its heralded director, Martin Friedman, the crisp edges and pure, unmediated color of the brushstrokes create an immediate visual charge. As a sculptural painting, Salute to Painting could be viewed as commentary not only on the art world of the 1950s, but on the 1980s as well. In a prominent essay in the October journal entitled “The End of Painting”, critic Douglas Crimp declared that conceptual art had triumphed and that painting was no longer germane. But with Salute to Painting (Study), Roy Lichtenstein vibrantly captures the precision and formal lushness of painting that was unmatched in the dematerialized art that was de rigueur in the 1980s. Noted curator Janis Hendrickson sums up the “brushstrokes” perfectly: “Lichtenstein has freeze-dried the sensual material of paint, as if he were eliminating the hand-made quality of paintings once and for all. The…scale of the petrified brushstrokes makes them into memorials commemorating the heroic medium of painting” (J. Hendrickson, Lichtenstein, Köln, 2012, p. 60).
Roy Lichtenstein’s Salute to Painting (Study), 1986, is an iconic example of the artist’s “Brushstroke” series, and a window into the working methods of a master of Pop Art. Exploding onto the American art scene in the early 1960s alongside Andy Warhol, Lichtenstein transported the visual language of advertising and comic books into the realm of high art. In contrast to the prevailing Abstract Expressionist aesthetic, Lichtenstein’s brushstrokes were epoch making. Calculated, wry, and coolly sophisticated, they stand as a counterpart to the overly-serious paintings of the 1950s. With a direct reference to the loaded brush of stalwarts such as Willem de Kooning, Salutw to Painting pays homage to the art of the immediate past while opening a door towards the future. Critic Dave Hickey agrees, noting that Lichtenstein’s work “delivered the effect of high-style American painting coolly through efficacious means, and, in the process, delivered American art from the tyranny of anxious execution… from the assumption of psychological dysfunction and tragic destiny that had pervaded post-war practice” (D. Hickey, Roy Lichtenstein Brushstrokes: Four Decades, New York, 2001, p. 10).
Salute to Painting (Study) serves as a fitting coda to this investigation. Part of a series that includes a large-scale sculpture at the Walker Art Center in honor of its heralded director, Martin Friedman, the crisp edges and pure, unmediated color of the brushstrokes create an immediate visual charge. As a sculptural painting, Salute to Painting could be viewed as commentary not only on the art world of the 1950s, but on the 1980s as well. In a prominent essay in the October journal entitled “The End of Painting”, critic Douglas Crimp declared that conceptual art had triumphed and that painting was no longer germane. But with Salute to Painting (Study), Roy Lichtenstein vibrantly captures the precision and formal lushness of painting that was unmatched in the dematerialized art that was de rigueur in the 1980s. Noted curator Janis Hendrickson sums up the “brushstrokes” perfectly: “Lichtenstein has freeze-dried the sensual material of paint, as if he were eliminating the hand-made quality of paintings once and for all. The…scale of the petrified brushstrokes makes them into memorials commemorating the heroic medium of painting” (J. Hendrickson, Lichtenstein, Köln, 2012, p. 60).