Roy Lichtenstein

-Roy Lichtenstein was born in New York City 1923. -He became famous for his bold, Pop Art paintings of comic strip cartoons and everyday objects:

-Although best known as a painter, he worked in a variety of media: sculpture, murals, prints and ceramics.

-Lichtenstein chose colours carefully, to imitate the four colors of printers’ inks. -He also used Ben Day dots, a system invented to increase the range of colors available to newspaper printing.

-Lichtenstein is famous for his use of cartoon strips from American comic books, which had a wide readership in the 1950s. He admired the skill of the comic book artist, who could create complex stories of love and war in cartoon form.

-Lichtenstein was sometimes accused of copying comics exactly, but he stressed that he made changes to them – right down to the tiniest placement of individual dots. He was also criticized for using very basic painting techniques.

Look closely at his work – can you see how the colours are clear from a distance, but look like tiny dots close-up?