Roy Lichtenstein
Pop Artist — born 1923
Roy Lichtenstein was an American pop artist famous for his comic strip paintings like ‘Whaam!’ and ‘Drowning Girl’.
Roy Lichtenstein was an American Pop-art painter whose four-decade artistic career produced one of the foundational bodies of work in 1960s American Pop-art movement — particularly his 1963 painting Drowning Girl (now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York). He was born Roy Fox Lichtenstein on October 27, 1923, in Manhattan, New York City, into an upper-middle-class American Jewish family. His father Milton Lichtenstein was a Manhattan real-estate broker and his mother Beatrice Werner Lichtenstein was a homemaker.
His education at the Ohio State University (B.F.A., 1946; M.F.A., 1949) — interrupted by his U.S. Army service across 1943–1946 (which included his service in the European Theater across the late 1944–1945 period as a member of the 84th Infantry Division) — launched his early-career path. His 1946–1951 career as an Ohio State University art instructor produced his early-career academic-art public profile.
His 1951–1957 series of New York-Bronx solo gallery shows preceded his 1961–1965 American Pop-art breakthrough. His 1961 first comic-book-source painting Look Mickey — which depicted Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in his characteristic Ben-Day-dot Pop-art technique — launched his early-1960s American Pop-art commercial breakthrough. The February 10, 1962 first solo Leo Castelli Gallery show in New York launched his early-1960s American Pop-art commercial peak.
His 1963 painting Drowning Girl — depicting a drowning blonde woman with the speech-bubble "I don't care! I'd rather sink — than call Brad for help!" — has been continuously cited as one of the foundational documents of 1960s American Pop-art movement. The 1963 painting was based on a 1962 DC Comics romance-comic-book panel by artist Tony Abruzzo. His subsequent 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s painting career produced multiple foundational 20th-century American Pop-art paintings — particularly the 1963 Whaam!, the 1963 In the Car, and the 1965 Brushstroke series. He died on September 29, 1997, at age 73, in New York City, of pneumonia complications.
His name Roy derives from the Old French roi meaning "king." Roy was a popular American boys' name through the early-to-mid-20th century.