William Newton“Roy Lichtenstein: Like New,” which opened recently at The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, is a terrific, unapologetically fun survey of the career and lasting influence of the Mid-Century Pop Art pioneer. The first major New York retrospective on Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) in decades, the show includes many of the paintings that made him famous, alongside rare gems rarely seen in public, as well as drawings, notes, sculptures, and his only commissioned film. Today, when one can ask AI to turn a picture of one’s pet into a Lichtenstein-like image in seconds, it’s more important than ever to go look at works of art that were created by human hands and employ the unique creative capacity of human beings. For although you or your photo manipulation platform of choice may be familiar with the “look” of a Lichtenstein, to understand his work only in reproduction or filter form is to miss out on the artist’s surprising, colorful genius.
I still recall visiting the National Gallery of Art many years ago and seeing Lichtenstein’s seminal “Look Mickey” (1961), also one of the earliest pieces in the new Whitney show. Most historians consider this piece the turning point when Lichtenstein abandoned his early, halting efforts in Neo- and Abstract Expressionism to explore what became known as Pop Art. At first viewing, I didn’t think much of this picture when I saw it from a distance. Only when I went up close and examined it more thoroughly did I realize that all those thousands of Ben-Day dots Lichtenstein famously used, imitating newsprint and comic book images, were drawn in pencil and then painted by hand. The mind reeled at the sheer amount of work that this would entail, more akin to the painstaking precision of Georges Seurat than the slopping about of Jackson Pollock.
It’s not only the technique but also the scale of Lichtenstein’s paintings that often surprises people who only know them in print or digital formats. “Green Street Mural” (1983/2026), for example, greets visitors as they enter the temporary exhibition space at the Whitney; it’s nearly 20 feet high and 100 feet long, a replica to scale of the original destroyed in 1984. Its content and scale set the theme for much of what visitors will see throughout the show: ironic commentary on “high” and “low” art; references to everyday objects; the use of thick, black lines combined with bright, often childlike colors.
A key example of this is “Drowning Girl” (1963), one of Lichtenstein’s most important paintings in the show. The painting is large, at roughly five and a half feet square, but its inspiration began with something as small as the first page of a comic book published in 1962 by the company that eventually became DC Comics. Lichtenstein doesn’t simply reproduce this printed image in painted form: he is too smart for that, and assumes that we are, as well. He intentionally alters or eliminates several details from the original, while introducing visual references to things like 19th-century Japanese woodblock prints and 20th-century Surrealism.
Once you become aware of these elements, the way in which you see the picture is completely altered. If the original comic book image depicted a dramatic-romantic moment in the story, in which the hero rescues the maiden and the scales fall from their eyes, the meaning of the new image is ambiguous. Is the girl drowning in actual water, or are the surrounding “waters” symbolic of her own confused thoughts? Does she still love “Brad,” or did she never love him to begin with? We get the sense that Lichtenstein is playing with us to see whether we’re paying attention.
In another gallery, “Still Life with Goldfish” (1972) begins with Lichtenstein simplifying Matisse’s painting of “Goldfish” (1912), a Fauvist image that itself has been reproduced thousands of times as a college dorm room poster. Here, Lichtenstein simplifies the foreground and adds a group of lemons to the side of the glass cylinder holding the fish. He also removes the floral background, replacing it with a partial view of Lichtenstein’s earlier painting “Golf Ball” (1962), reminiscent of how painters like Salvador Dalí and René Magritte incorporated references to their earlier paintings into later work. The references do not end there; the original “Golf Ball” itself, a large painting also in the Whitney show, relates to black-and-white spherical compositions by De Stijl co-founder Piet Mondrian.
To its great credit, in mounting this show the Whitney clearly thought about how to present a vast range of material to the entire public, not just those already familiar with Lichtenstein’s work. An effort was made in the layout of the exhibition design to by turns expand and then collapse the scale of the galleries, so that very large works are given plenty of wall space for viewing, while the larger spaces are punctuated by the insertion of smaller galleries. The pleasing effect creates an interplay of rooms-within-rooms.
Perhaps the best of these comparatively more intimate spaces reproduces Lichtenstein’s ground-breaking first New York exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1962. The dynamic “Blam” (1962), for example, on loan from Yale, is the centerpiece that draws visitors into the space. Once inside, visitors see a group of paintings such as “Laughing Cat” (1961) and “The Kiss” (1961) (a personal favorite), both of which are rarely seen canvases currently in private collections.
Bringing these works together again creates a time-machine-like experience. Back in 1962, people were talking about Cuba, Vietnam, and the Second Vatican Council. The Beatles released their first single; “Dr. No,” the first James Bond film, premiered; and a comedian named Johnny Carson took over “The Tonight Show.” What did people in the era of Camelot and the Space Race think of these strange, colorful images Lichtenstein created, which seemed to take shots at subjects such as the art world, consumerism, and the war industry? The Whitney show gives visitors an incredibly rare opportunity to imagine and debate these questions in a physical context that evokes the original experience the artist intended.
Beyond the white chosen to reproduce the walls of the Castelli space, the Whitney has differentiated the show’s galleries in shades of gray, from pearl and mauve to concrete and charcoal. This allows Lichtenstein’s strong lines and, where he employs them, crayon-like colors to – if you’ll forgive the pun – “pop.” Moving through the exhibition, one comes to appreciate how often Lichtenstein used the color red, for example, and in particular how often he depicted red-headed women; probably not since the Pre-Raphaelites has any major artist depicted so many. The benefit of this being a retrospective means that we can see works such as “Ohhh…Alright…” (1964) both in its small, colored pencil sketch form, and in the large, completed painting, where Lichtenstein makes the red hair even more intensely red than the preliminary study might otherwise have indicated.
Though Lichtenstein’s palette was intentionally limited, and many of his works are in black and white, color is an element that delights the eye in this show. A good example is “Masterpiece” (1962), in which the artist pokes fun at the art market of his day: the bright primary yellow, blue, and red in both the study and the final painting stand out boldly from the sedate, corporate gray wall. In another gallery, Lichtenstein’s mesmerizing five-panel take on Claude Monet’s views of Rouen Cathedral, created in 1969, is presented as a kind of visual overload, with iridescent, almost tastefully psychedelic shades of yellow, orange, purple, and midnight blue.
After seeing the show, you can head outdoors to a large terrace just outside the exhibition galleries, where two monumental works designed by Lichtenstein are temporarily installed, including a monumental portrait on metal panel of a redheaded woman and an example of one of Lichtenstein’s urban sculptures. Having this space in which to get some fresh air, think about what you’ve seen, and take in the view of the city is rare in a blockbuster exhibition experience, where the visitor is often herded in and out of a long queue like someone without TSA Pre-Check. It also encourages visitors to go back and look at something again before leaving the museum.
The 30-foot-high “Coups de Pinceau” (1988), also known as the “Sculpture for Paris,” sits at the far end of the Whitney’s 5th-floor terrace as you exit the exhibition space, creating a destination point without blocking the view of the East River. It was created during a period later in Lichtenstein’s career, when international cities began commissioning the now famous artist to design large Pop Art sculptures such as “El Cap de Barcelona” (1992) for the Barcelona Olympics or “Tokyo Brushstroke I and II” (1994). Like Lichtenstein’s paintings, these commissions are marked by strong black lines and white spaces, punctuated with vibrant color blocks and patterns.
As I made my way around the piece, an Italian woman approached and asked whether I could take her picture alongside it. It being New York Comic Con weekend during my visit, I must confess that at first I was unsure as to whether the lady was a cosplayer, given that her attire and general appearance rather resembled that of Edina Monsoon. We chatted briefly about how much we had both enjoyed the show, noting Lichtenstein’s wit, attention to detail, and his use of playful colors.
Due to the large height of the sculpture, I inquired whether the lady preferred a closeup of herself with a detail of the piece, or a full-height, zoomed-out shot.
“Both!” she replied enthusiastically. “Color is life!”
“Roy Lichtenstein: Like New” is at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York through May 10, 2027.
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William Newton is a critic, commentator, and public speaker with a wide variety of interests in the art world. He is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, the University of Notre Dame Law School, and Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. He lives in Washington, D.C.
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