Roy Lichtenstein – Diagram of an Artist | Tate

Tate

1 Feb 201309:04

Summary

TLDRThe script provides an intimate look at renowned pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's life and career through interviews with his wife, art dealers, and curators. It traces his artistic journey - from initial controversy and self-doubt over using cartoon images in painting to later commercial success and acceptance. The interviews highlight Lichtenstein's dedication to his craft, easy-going yet focused personality, central influences like his college professor, and close creative partnership with art dealer Leo Castelli.

Takeaways

😊 Roy Lichtenstein was a passionate, focused, and joyful artist who found painting to be his true calling and source of happiness
🎨 His Pop Art style using cartoon imagery was controversial yet impactful, conveying more meaning than his previous works
🖌️ Art professor Hoyt Sherman, who taught perceptual methods, was a major influence on Lichtenstein’s artistic development
😎 Lichtenstein had a humble, good-natured personality and bonded with his art dealer Leo Castelli through decades of friendship and trust
📐 He used techniques like flipping canvases to eliminate subjectivity and focus on pure form when painting
🧑‍🎨 The industrial, ironic style of Pop Art was a major departure from the emotion-driven Abstract Expressionist movement
🎉 Lichtenstein was surprised and amused by his own success, joking he would end up forgotten in an asylum
💡 His interest was in the positioning and contrast of lines and shapes, not their innate character
🤝 He valued his collaborative creative partnership with Castelli, saying: 'I paint the pictures and he sells them, as that. What could be better?'
😄 Even at the height of his fame, Lichtenstein remained down-to-earth and true to his personality

Q & A

What medium did Lichtenstein primarily work in?
-Lichtenstein worked primarily as a painter, using oil and acrylic paints on canvas.
What art movement was Lichtenstein associated with?
-Lichtenstein was a pioneering Pop artist, known for his paintings based on comic strips and advertising imagery.
How did Lichtenstein transform his cartoon-based source material?
-Lichtenstein transformed cartoon images into paintings by outlining shapes in thick black contours and using Ben-Day dots, a printing process that renders tonal gradations.
Who was Lichtenstein's art dealer?
-Leo Castelli was Lichtenstein's art dealer for his entire career, from 1961 until the artist's death in 1997.
What was Lichtenstein's artistic process like?
-Lichtenstein kept a regular schedule, working in his studio with great focus and enjoyment. Painting was his joy and purpose.
How did Lichtenstein feel about his early Pop Art paintings?
-Lichtenstein found his early Pop paintings, which departed from Abstract Expressionism, to be frightening but also meaningful.
Who was Hoyt Sherman and what was his influence?
-Hoyt Sherman was Lichtenstein's art professor at Ohio State. His teachings on perception greatly impacted Lichtenstein's approach.
Why did Lichtenstein turn his paintings upside down?
-Lichtenstein turned paintings upside down to distance himself from the subject matter and see the work as pure painterly marks.
What was Lichtenstein's relationship with his art dealer like?
-Lichtenstein and Leo Castelli shared a close friendship and trusted each other completely throughout their 36-year partnership.
How did Lichtenstein feel about his success and fame?
-Lichtenstein was amused by his growing fame but retained a sense of humility, imagining it could all disappear.

Outlines

00:00

😊 Lichtenstein's Artistic Style and Career

This paragraph provides an overview of Roy Lichtenstein's artistic style, describing it as diagrammatic and outlining in nature. It discusses his dedication to painting, daily studio routine, and lack of pretension about his work. The passage also notes the controversy surrounding Pop Art when Lichtenstein became known in the 1960s, and how some questioned whether it qualified as serious art.

05:04

😄 Lichtenstein's Influences and Perspective on His Work

This paragraph explores various influences on Lichtenstein's work, including his Ohio State professor Hoyt Sherman's teachings about perception. It also conveys Lichtenstein's aim of resensing familiar subjects by turning them upside down, using mirrors, and revisiting them later with fresh eyes. The passage suggests Lichtenstein was amused by high-flung things and had a natural humility about his art.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Pop Art

Pop Art was an art movement in the 1960s that used imagery and techniques from popular culture like advertising, comic books, and mundane cultural objects. It is mentioned several times in the script as Lichtenstein was a seminal Pop Art painter. His use of comic book styles and commercial art formats was controversial but impactful. When the interviewer first met Lichtenstein, there was still “great controversy” around whether Pop Art was serious art.

💡painting style

Lichtenstein had a very distinct painting style focused on outlining, delineating, and simplifying the subject matter. As described in the script, "The diagram is maybe a good word, for the way I represent other artists, That may be true of cartooning, That it tends to be a diagram of a person, It seems to depict by outlining, delineating in a simple way, what a subject is." This diagrammatic and graphic style, influenced by comic books and commercial art, was central to his work.

💡artistic process

The video gives insight into Lichtenstein's artistic process. He kept a regular schedule, spending full days painting in the studio which he saw as a "joy" and "pleasure". He was very focused when working, to the point where the interviewer could sit and watch him paint without being a distraction.

💡perception

Perception and new ways of seeing art are discussed. An old professor of Lichtenstein taught him "ways of seeing and perception" using quick image flashes. Lichtenstein later built on this by saying, "When I turn the work upside down, it's to obliterate the subject...You can see it clearly if you look at it through a mirror because it reverses everything." Changing perception was key to his style.

💡commercial art

Lichtenstein made extensive use of commercial art as source material, particularly comic books and advertising. He felt commercial art was "as far away from an artistic image as you can get" which is why transforming it appealed to him. His paintings retained the comic or graphic look rather than seeming tortured or anguished.

💡artistic meaning

A central tension in Lichtenstein's work was whether it held artistic meaning, given its pop art commercial style. He states, "it had meaning and I knew very shortly that it had more meaning, then the things I had done before". The interviewer notes there was controversy over whether the work was "serious art" when she first met him.

💡artistic purpose

The video touches on debates around the purpose of Lichtenstein's art with his new pop art style. Lines are drawn between perceiving the works as "pure mark" and compositional elements rather than just as representations of comic book themes or subjects. Lichtenstein stated his aim was to create "something entirely different" from his original sources.

💡recontextualization

A core aspect of Lichtenstein's work was recontextualizing commercial art by putting it into the contexts and formats of fine art, like large paintings. This built irony, wit, and tensions between high and low culture. But even Lichtenstein was "frightened" when first doing this as it went against his sense of art and taste.

💡Artistic draftsmanship

The interviewer notes Lichtenstein "never quite managed to get the tormented look" in his paintings that Abstract Expressionists had. While other pop artists might have, Lichtenstein retained a level of artistic draftsmanship and avoidance of extremes. He was grounded and humble rather than tortured.

💡Dealer relationship

Lichtenstein had a lifelong relationship with his art dealer Leo Castelli built on friendship and trust rather than contracts. He joked that Castelli "sells them [the paintings] and what could be better" in terms of their mutual reliance. This close dealer relationship was important to his commercial success.

Highlights

Lichtenstein's art was diagrammatic, outlining and delineating subjects in a simple way.

Lichtenstein found joy and pleasure in creating art in his studio.

Lichtenstein's art was controversial when it first emerged, challenging Abstract Expressionism.

Lichtenstein was frightened by his early Pop Art style, finding it lacking taste and artistry.

Lichtenstein was fascinated by using cartoon styles in formal painting.

A professor influenced Lichtenstein's unique ways of seeing and perception.

Turning art upside down helped Lichtenstein re-perceive it in a pure way.

Lichtenstein focused on line, contrast and position rather than character.

Lichtenstein had a natural humility and was amused by the absurd.

Lichtenstein had a lifelong friendship and trust with his art dealer.

Lichtenstein joked he'd be unaware of his fame, medicated in a wheelchair.

Lichtenstein said his role was painting, and his dealer's was selling.

The best relationship between an artist and dealer is friendship.

Lichtenstein never had a contract with his dealer Leo Castelli.

Lichtenstein imagined snowed-in obscurity rather than fame and fortune.