Roy Lichtenstein's distinctive paintings of the early 1960s are synonymous with the Pop art movement. These bold, oversized images inspired by newspaper advertisements and comic book scenes have been taken as reflecting the artist's fascination with the links between art and popular culture. In this study, Michael Lobel challenges this circumscribed view of Lichtenstein's work, offering a set of interpretations that reveal the artist's confrontation with a far wider range of issues. Lichtenstein's art is fundamentally engaged with a set of concerns central to art-making in the postwar period: the relation between vision and technology, the possibility of articulating artistic identity, and the effect of mechanical reproduction on the work of art. Lichtenstein's project, Lobel argues, is structured by the tension between painting understood as a fully expressive, humanistic gesture and, conversely, as the product of a purely mechanical act. This illustrated volume makes available an array of archival materials about Lichtenstein and his work, including photographs of the artist and sources for his imagery in the comics and advertisements of the early 1960s. It also provides information on the context of the artist's Pop paintings in relation to contemporary developments in advertising culture, mechanical reproduction and visual technologies. Examining the artist's work, the author offers a comprehensive analysis of Lichtenstein's early Pop paintings and seeks to provide insight into the issues that shaped the Pop art movement, artistic practices in the 1960s, and the historical relation between modern art and popular culture.
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Among the many retrospective texts written in the years following Lichtenstein's death in 1997, this offers an unprecedented and cogent reappraisal of the artist's participation in the pop art movement between the late 1950s and mid-1960s. It also provides valuable insight into the nature of the union between psychology and commerce in both the marketplace and the pop aesthetic of this period. Lobel (art history, Bard Coll.) presents Lichtenstein as a shrewd if occasionally ironic manipulator of lowbrow cultural ephemera who struggled with the paradox of being a painter in the age of mechanical reproduction and who, consequently, transformed elements of mass culture into sly, sometimes self-effacing intellectual puns. Lobel's argument is well crafted and concise, and over the course of five chapters, he entices the reader down several conceptual tributaries branching from his central thesis. He tips his hat to postmodern art historical orthodoxy by employing methodologies and broaching issues now considered de rigueur for art theorists: semiotics, gender issues, and the gaze. Lobel is sparing but effective in his use of illustrations, offering period advertisements, comics strips, and comparisons to works of a similar spirit by his sometime rival Warhol to distinguish Lichtenstein's oeuvre from others' in his milieu. Highly recommended for collections focusing on modern art. Savannah Schroll, Smithsonian Institution Libs., Washington, DC
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
[N]avigates the demands of academic inquiry with intelligence and grace, integrating critical speculation, extended formal analysis, and meticulous scholarly research. -- Margaret Sundell, Bookforum
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally a good Lichtenstein analysis,
This review is from: Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art (Hardcover)
One of only a very few books on Roy Lichtenstein available is fortunately a very good one indeed. Includes an analysis of his work, his sources and influences, and his influence on contemporary art. Illustrations include some of the source material for his most recognized paintings. Smart, sensible, accessible, and attractive.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Roy Lichtenstein: Image Duplicator,
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This review is from: Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art (Hardcover)
This is a fantastic book, beautifully illustrated and well-written. A must for all admirers of Lichtenstein's work.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Academic diatribe,
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This review is from: Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art (Hardcover)
This is art speak at its best - contains a lot of valuable information if you really search for it. The text reads more like a thesis rather than a book. Lots of bulking to fill the covers and a tendency to give the inconsequential consequence. For the academic there are a lot good references, quotations and examples of pompous phraseology. Pity it was not written in plain English - it would have been a ripper!
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