Roy Lichtenstein

Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

London, Pavillion of Art & Design, Roy Lichtenstein/Interior Collages, 2011, n.p., illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the lighter yellow is slightly brighter and more vibrant and the deeper yellow is slightly more muted in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There are artist's pin holes in several places along the outer edges. There is a short tear in the top right hand corner. There is a short, fine piece of collage that stands away from the surface of the work at the centre of the top black strip in the top right quadrant. In keeping with the artist’s choice of media and working process, there is some light buckling to the paper collage. Visible only upon very close inspection, there is very light paper skinning in a few places to the lighter painted areas and border. There is a small handling mark at the centre of the top horizontal border and a few further handling marks and light media accretions along the left border.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Modern Room (Study) forms part of one of Roy Lichtenstein’s last major bodies of work, entitled Interiors. These works represent a culmination of the artist’s highly distinctive method of appropriating images from popular media to produce works that comment on contemporary culture. Seductive commercial images of the modern home interior acted as a major source of inspiration for the series, as Lichtenstein focused on a subject that has long captured the fascination of Pop artists: the myth of blissful bourgeois domesticity. From his earliest Pop works, interiors played a vital role in Lichtenstein's work. His first interior painting, Bathroom, from 1961, belongs to his black and white period which derived primarily from newspaper advertisements which encapsulated a dramatic period of change in American art, when Lichtenstein and his fellow artists were embarking on a complex process of exploring new methods, new subjects, and new boundaries in art. Lichtenstein’s decision to return to the theme of Interiors thirty years after his original investigations indicates their importance within his artistic canon as a whole.

There is perhaps an element of irony inherent within the title of Modern Room (Study). Though created in the early 1990s, the interior in question bears all the hallmarks of a fashionable 1960s design scheme in its sleek simplicity and geometrically inclined furniture. Whilst Lichtenstein often included examples of his own paintings within some of the later Interiors, the current lot features an image of Chairman Mao displayed prominently beside the bookshelf, an intriguing inclusion in light of the comfortable consumerism displayed by the choice of accoutrements and interior style of the room. With its neatly arranged table and chairs alongside a conveniently placed reading lamp and nearby bookshelves, the Study depicted here is the ultimate in style and comfort for its time, merely awaiting a human presence to utilise its advantages. This late-career return to Interiors as a subject allowed Lichtenstein to re-examine the concept of consumer culture in America in the 1990s, a theme which had been one of the primary concerns of the original 1960s Pop movement.

Modern Room (Study) features Lichtenstein’s signature Benday dot, one of the most iconic and instantly recognisable motifs within late twentieth century art history. The artist had first employed the Benday dot within his works in 1961, consistently perfecting and refining his technique over the following decades. Lichtenstein’s creative appropriation of the Benday dot invites associations with the glossy print techniques used by magazines, an especially appropriate connection for the late Interior works, which can arguably be viewed as a caricature of the types of highly orchestrated interiors prevalent in the 1980s that graced the pages of Architectural Digest and similar glossy publications. Within Modern Interior (Study), the artist projects an understated minimalist aesthetic, with colours and shapes pared down to suggest elegant restraint. Lichtenstein referenced the importance of clean shapes and colours within his works in an interview in the late 1960s: "I use colour in the same way as line. I want it oversimplified… Actual colour adjustment is achieved through manipulation of size, shape and juxtaposition"  (the artist in conversation with G.R. Swenson cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Tate Gallery, Roy Lichtenstein, 1968, p. 9). In Modern Room (Study), Lichtenstein draws together key themes and ideals from his earlier career to create a magnificent work that acts as a fitting summation of the artist’s decades long investigation into the potential of Interiors as a creative theme.