Roy Lichtenstein’s masterful Pop Art posters from 1962 to 1997 are showcased in this collection of 68 full-color reproductions.

Lichtenstein’s art is most recognizable for its trademark benday dots and two-dimensional planes, cartoonlike qualities that placed him at the forefront of the American Pop Art scene. With its emphasis on consumer culture, Lichtenstein’s style lent itself easily to the poster genre. This volume opens with his earliest poster, designed for his first exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery in 1962, and closes with his last, which he completed the year of his death. An additional section features reproductions from the Claus von Olden collection and includes posters and flyers that were produced all over the world using Lichtenstein’s iconic motifs. The works reflect Lichtenstein’s prolific imagination and ability to adapt his vision to the promotion of music and film festivals, theatrical performances, museums, restaurants, and public service messages as well as his own exhibitions. An essay discusses Lichtenstein’s development as an artist who blurred the boundaries between lowbrow and highbrow art.

The Popstar: When art went Whaam!

American painter Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) pioneered a new epoch in American art, bursting onto a scene dominated by Abstract Expressionism in late 1950s New York and defining a new art vocabulary for a new era.

With his groundbreaking use of industrial production techniques and trivial, quotidian imagery such as cartoons, comic strips, and advertising, Lichtenstein joined contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist to reflect and satirize American mass media and consumer culture. Works such as Look, Mickey! (1961), Drowning Girl (1963), and Whaam! (1963), deployed mass production techniques, particularly Ben-Day dots printing, to create a blow-up effect and pixelated dot style, with which Lichtenstein has become synonymous.

This book provides an essential overview of Lichtenstein s career, tracing his earliest Pop statements through to later brushstroke retorts to Abstract Expressionism and reinterpretations of modern masterpieces. We look at his leading position in mid-century modernism, and the ways in which his works both critique and chronicle 20th-century America.

About the series:

Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. 

Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series features:
- a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
- a concise biography
- approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

This is the first monograph on the great American artist's work as a sculptor.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition held at the Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova for the 2013 Venice Biennale, the monograph exhaustively illustrates the sculptures Lichtenstein created between 1968 and 1997, the year of his death. From his first ceramic works down to large-scale public ones, the volume seeks to trace the artistic process leading from draughts and drawings to collages, maquettes, metal sculptures and large-scale urban installations. It also seeks to explore Lichtenstein's work on industrial manufacturing methods and techniques, by providing important information about the workshops the artist collaborated with during his career.

The book is intended to offer a comprehensive overview of the artist's experimental use of methods of industrial production, along with a selection of interviews and texts on his two-dimensional sculptures.

The art historian, critic and theoretician Germano Celant has curated exhibitions throughout the world and authored over a hundred books and catalogues. The Director of the Fondazone Prada in Milan since 1995, Celant is also the curator of the Fondazione Aldo Rossi in Milan, and the curator of the Fondazione Vedova in Venice.  He writes for L'Espresso and Interni.

English edition (with Italian insert)
Exhibition
Venice, Fondazione Vedova
28 May – 24 November 2013

Accompanying catalogue of an exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, Paris. The catalogue includes a fully illustrated, comprehensive listing of the paintings, drawings, and prints in Lichtenstein’s Expressionism series. Among the styles and movements appropriated by Lichtenstein, his borrowing of Expressionist motifs — from Alexei Jawlensky’s close-up, pensive faces to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s jagged, feline figures — strikes the clearest irony. Including key paintings, sculpture, drawings, and woodcuts, this catalogue demonstrates the bold paradox that Lichtenstein posed by translating Expressionist subjects into the primary colors and pop flatness of his signature style.

About the Authors:

Brenda Schmahmann is a research professor in the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. She is the author of many articles and books, the most recent of which is Picturing Change: Curating Visual Culture at Post-Apartheid Universities. Hans Ulrich Obrist is a curator, critic, and art historian. He is codirector of exhibitions and programs and director of international projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London. Mayen Beckmann is the granddaughter of Max Beckmann and the editor of several publications that focus on the artist. Ruth Fine is a curator at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the author of the introduction to The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1948–1993. Sidney B. Felsen is cofounder and codirector of Gemini G.E.L., an artists’ workshop and publisher of limited-edition prints and sculptures in L.A., and it had a long-standing publishing relationship with Roy Lichtenstein.

From the funny pages to the canvas, comics recontextualized

In the late 50s and 60s, American painter Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) became one of the most important exponents of Pop Art - that movement which transformed products of mass consumption and the entertainment industry into subjects for art. This apotheosis of banal, everyday objects simultaneously constituted a criticism of the traditional elitist understanding of art.

Almost alone among artists, Lichtenstein pursued the question of how an image becomes a work of art. Wholly in keeping with the spirit of the Classical Modern, he held that it was not the "rank" of the picture’s subject that lends the picture its artistic character, but rather the artist’s formal treatment of it. To Lichtenstein, however, this position seemed far too broad to be seriously pursued.

Developed in the early 60s, Lichtenstein’s grid technique, with its allusion to the mass-production of graphic art, allowed the painter to give vent to his own artistic scepticism. In the 60s and 70s, Lichtenstein expanded his formal repertoire of techniques for creating distance and irony by means of an idiosyncratic process of abstraction and especially by his use of his numerous art quotations.

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art Series  features:

- a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
- a concise biography
- approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions

The author:
Janis Hendrickson studied art history at Smith College and gained her doctorate in Hamburg under Martin Warncke. She is presently a writer and curator.

Roy Lichtenstein’s painting is almost an identifiable brand today and his influence is evident in many forms of artistic expression: painting, advertising, photography, design, fashion.

Published for the extensive Milan exhibition and curated by Gianni Mercurio, this catalogue analyses – for the first time – the works he created by appropriating images from the history of modern art.

The publication comprises more than 100 works, mainly large-scale paintings, drawings and sculptures, photographs, and short films dedicated to the artist held in significant public and private international collections, including the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, the Ludwig Forum in Aachen, the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Moderner Kunst Museum in Vienna, and the Broad Art Foundation in Los Angeles.

There is a wide range of paintings with their preparatory drawings made by Lichtenstein from the 1950s to the 1990s and inspired by Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, 1930s Modernism, minimalist abstraction, Action Painting, and landscape and still life genres.

His art was not mere ‘citationism’ or the desire to reinterpret the art of the past but is about the appropriation and transformation in a Pop way of forms of Greek architecture, Etruscan painting and the Baroque line.

The exhibition proposes a major re-reading of the following: Impressionism and expressionism, with their main exponents such as Monet, Matisse, and Nolde; Cubism with Picasso; Futurism; the Rationalism of Mondrian; and Surrealism.

The historic avant-garde movements in particular, which gave life to a new artistic course through a break with the past and which are now assimilated into ‘great art’, were in turn transformed to become an object of ironic and destabilising inquiry highlighting the cultural commercialisation and exploitation of high art.

One of the most complete monographs of the artist to date, this volume depicts the career of Roy Lichtenstein, one of the finest American pop artists of his era. Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) was the master of the stereotype, and the most sophisticated of the major pop artists. An emblematic protagonist of the New York art scene of the second half of twentieth century, he became a legend in his prolific lifetime. Even now, thirteen years after his death, his works and lexicon of symbols, subjects and themes continue to intrigue the art world. Published on the occasion of the major exhibition at the Milan Triennial, this monograph covers the entire artistic development of Roy Lichtenstein, through more than 250 paintings and sculptural works, a rich photographic section including unpublished material, and critical text. The reproductions of Lichtenstein’s work are large-format, in full color. The insightful quotes and most of the references to his personal life serve to explain how his art evolved or how he came to be in a particular place in the world. This deluxe edition (large square format with padded cover) offers a dynamic and provocative look at the works of Lichtenstein through a powerful combination of text and visual elements. It will appeal to Lichtenstein fans, critics, dealers, and anyone interested in contemporary art.

About the Author:

Gianni Mercurio, curator and essayist, lives and works in Rome. His exhibitions in museums include: Andy Warhol (Rome, Genoa, 1996/1999), Roy Lichtenstein, Reflections (Rome, Milan, Wolfsburg Kunstmuseum 1999/2000), Keith Haring (Pisa, Rome, Helsinki, Aachen-Ludwig Forum, Catania 1999/2001) Jean-Michel Basquiat (Rome, 2002) George Segal (Rome, 2002) and exhibitions on the Graffitists (Naples, Rome, 1997/1998) and the Hyper-realists (Rome, 2003). For Skira the author has published The Andy Warhol Show (2004), The Keith Haring Show (2005), and The Jean-Michel Basquiat Show (2006).

Comic genius

One of the most important exponents of Pop Art

In the late 50s and 60s, American painter Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) became one of the most important exponents of Pop Art - that movement which transformed products of mass consumption and the entertainment industry into subjects for art. This apotheosis of banal, everyday objects simultaneously constituted a criticism of the traditional elitist understanding of art.

Almost alone among artists, Lichtenstein pursued the question of how an image becomes a work of art. Wholly in keeping with the spirit of the Classical Modern, he held that it was not the "rank" of the picture’s subject that lends the picture its artistic character, but rather the artist’s formal treatment of it. To Lichtenstein, however, this position seemed far too broad to be seriously pursued.

Developed in the early 60s, Lichtenstein’s grid technique, with its allusion to the mass-production of graphic art, allowed the painter to give vent to his own artistic scepticism. In the 60s and 70s, Lichtenstein expanded his formal repertoire of techniques for creating distance and irony by means of an idiosyncratic process of abstraction and especially by his use of his numerous art quotations.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:

* a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist
* approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions
* a concise biography

Roy Lichtenstein (born 1923) became famous in the early 1960s for his deadpan recreations of popular imagery, particularly paintings based on war and romance comics. As this book demonstrates, Lichtensteins interest in quoting subjects form both high and low art has continued throughout his career, producing a fascinating and varied body of work.

Roy Lichtenstein in His Studio is a portfolio of vivid and engaging photographs by Laurie Lambrecht, who was an administrative assistant to Lichtenstein for three years. She and the artist worked together daily, and the bond between them is evident in the photographs. Lichtenstein is shown working on two major series, Reflections and The Interiors. He is completely absorbed, oblivious to the camera, as he mounts ladders, assembles colors, composes, and steps back to consider the effect.

During this period Lambrecht assisted in gathering material for a major retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. As a result, the photographs include scrapbooks and sketchbooks and other archival material that document Lichtenstein’s entire career. There are stencils of Ben-Day dots, clippings from newspapers and comic books, Polaroid snapshots, rolls of tape, and boxes of colored pencils.

Lichtenstein encouraged Lambrecht to make photographs and was often pleased and amused by the results. These images offer fascinating insight into Lichtenstein’s working processes and source materials, as well as being vibrant works of art in their own right.

In her essay Dorothy Lichtenstein, wife of the artist, recalls the collegial atmosphere of the studios in New York and Southampton in the early 1990s, a time of extraordinary productivity. Edward Robinson, an associate curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, describes Lambrecht’s process and approach.Roy Lichtenstein in His Studio is a portfolio of vivid and engaging photographs by Laurie Lambrecht, who was an administrative assistant to Lichtenstein for three years. She and the artist worked together daily, and the bond between them is evident in the photographs. Lichtenstein is shown working on two major series, Reflections and The Interiors. He is completely absorbed, oblivious to the camera, as he mounts ladders, assembles colors, composes, and steps back to consider the effect.

During this period Lambrecht assisted in gathering material for a major retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. As a result, the photographs include scrapbooks and sketchbooks and other archival material that document Lichtenstein’s entire career. There are stencils of Ben-Day dots, clippings from newspapers and comic books, Polaroid snapshots, rolls of tape, and boxes of colored pencils.

Lichtenstein encouraged Lambrecht to make photographs and was often pleased and amused by the results. These images offer fascinating insight into Lichtenstein’s working processes and source materials, as well as being vibrant works of art in their own right.

In her essay Dorothy Lichtenstein, wife of the artist, recalls the collegial atmosphere of the studios in New York and Southampton in the early 1990s, a time of extraordinary productivity. Edward Robinson, an associate curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, describes Lambrecht’s process and approach.