If you like pop-art, you’ll like Roy Lichtenstein, and if you like Lichtenstein, you’ll love this 125-piece retrospective of his work – the largest in 20 years – opening today at the Tate Modern. Lichtenstein’s most recognisable style is that of comic-book frames, employing hand-painted Benday dots and often portraying his protagonists as trapped in melancholic situations, with expressions from gnawing dissatisfaction to outright misery. The American icon’s most famous images from the 1960s will be on show, along with some perhaps lesser-known forays into black-and-white, futurism and surrealism.
Despite having more sponsors than a 1980s Formula 1 car, the exhibition will still cost you over £15 to get in if you don’t want to go for the charity-snubbing cheapskate £14 ticket and are not a bloody student or other concession-entitled type, but before we get our pants in a pinch about the accessibility of art for the working Joe; events of this significance don’t come around every week, so you pays your money (or not) and you takes your choice. There’s certainly enough of Lichtenstein’s career output here to get full value for money, and you can get your fill until 27th May.
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Brushstrokes 1965
Private collection
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012
Roy Lichtenstein, Masterpiece 1962
Private Collection
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012
Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! 1963
Tate. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012
Roy Lichtenstein
The Ring (Engagement), 1962
Stefan T. Edlis Collection
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012
Roy Lichtenstein 1923-1997
Interior with Waterlilies 1991
Tate. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012
Roy Lichtenstein, Oh, Jeff…I Love You, Too…But… 1964
Collection Simonyi
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Still Life with Goldfish 1972
Oil and Magna on canvas
Private Collection
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Femme d’Alger 1963
Oil on canvas
The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Collection, Los Angeles
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012
