Chronology

1923

October 27, 1923

Roy Fox Lichtenstein is born in Manhattan to Milton (1893–1946) and Beatrice (née Werner; 1896–1991). Milton, a first-generation German Jewish American from New York, is a real-estate broker who, with his business partner Herbert Loeb, founded the Garage Realty Company. Beatrice, born in New Orleans to a family of German Jewish descent, is a homemaker and gifted piano player. Roy’s middle name Fox is a reference to Beatrice’s mother’s maiden name (originally German: Fuchs).

1924

Family moves to 310 West 99th Street.

1927

Family resides at 924 West End Avenue at 105th Street.

December 17, 1927

Sister Renée Regina is born. Her middle name is Beatrice’s mother’s first name.

1928

Fall 1928

Attends kindergarten near 104th Street and West End Avenue.

1931

Over concerns about the Depression, family moves to a smaller apartment at 505 West End Avenue at 84th Street.

Fall 1931

Begins first grade at P.S. 9. Develops a strong interest in drawing and science and later recalls spending time designing model airplanes. Frequently visits the American Museum of Natural History. Favorite radio shows include The Shadow, Jack Armstrong, Flash Gordon and Mandrake the Magician.

1934

Family moves to a seven-room apartment at 305 West 86th Street with his maternal grandfather. Father’s business is unaffected by the Depression.

1935

October 10, 1935

George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess debuts at the Alvin Theater. Makes pen-and-ink sketches of the show that were later discarded.¹Oral history interview with Charles Batterman by Avis Berman, August 2002, RLF Archives. Charles Batterman was a fellow student at Ohio State University. They shared an apartment from 1942–43.

1936

Fall 1936

Starts eighth grade at Franklin School for Boys, a private school in Manhattan. Studies French and Latin. Becomes interested in art as an escape from his school instruction.

1937

Enrolls in Saturday morning watercolor classes at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (now Parsons School of Design). Paints still lifes and flower arrangements using watercolor and opaque watercolor; also works directly from the model.²Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein, November 15, 1963–January 15, 1964. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. [Conducted by Richard Brown Baker.]

During high school, studies the clarinet and plays the piano. Visits jazz clubs with friend Don Wolf. Forms a small band.

Summer 1937

Makes "romantic watercolors" of the forest trees and lake while at camp in Maine.³Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein, November 15, 1963–January 15, 1964. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. [Conducted by Richard Brown Baker.]

Receives first art book, Thomas Craven’s Modern Art: The Men, the Movements, the Meaning.⁴Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein, November 15, 1963–January 15, 1964. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. [Conducted by Richard Brown Baker.]

1938

January 16, 1938

Attends Benny Goodman’s first concert at Carnegie Hall. Begins playing jazz music.

1939

April 30, 1939

Is a frequent visitor at the 1939–40 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York, whose theme is "Building the World of Tomorrow."

1940

June 1940

Graduates from Franklin.

July 1–August 9, 1940

Attends Reginald Marsh’s painting class at the Art Students League. Studies anatomical drawing and Renaissance techniques such as glazing and underpainting, which he applies to quotidian subjects. Later, recalls Marsh adding musculature to his paintings. Feeling that Marsh’s paintings have a "brassy … very commercial" quality, is ultimately dissatisfied with the course’s insistence on technique over process.⁵Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein, November 15, 1963–January 15, 1964. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. [Conducted by Richard Brown Baker.] Paintings of the time include abstract works based on landscapes, still lifes and figure studies, most strive for exact representation of model.

September 23, 1940

Begins undergraduate degree at the Ohio State University (OSU) in the College of Education.

Autumn Quarter 1940

First art classes are Art Appreciation, taught by Frank Roos, and Advanced Freehand Drawing. Other classes include Education Survey, Field Artillery and Botany. Pledges Phi Sigma Delta and moves into the fraternity house at 1968 Iuka Avenue in Columbus.

November 7–December 8, 1940

Sees Picasso’s masterwork Guernica (1937) in an exhibition, likely in Ohio.⁶Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein, November 15, 1963–January 15, 1964. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. [Conducted by Richard Brown Baker.]

1941

During this year, moves off campus to North High Street in Columbus.

Picasso’s Blue Period is a significant influence despite pervasiveness of Regionalism at OSU.

Winter Quarter 1941

Classes at OSU include Elementary Design and Elementary Freehand Drawing, along with Field Artillery and Comprehension and Reading.

Spring Quarter 1941

Takes Drawing from the Head, taught by Robert Gatrell, and Introduction to Literature, as well as continued classes in field artillery.

Fall Quarter 1941

Takes History through the Ages, taught by Robert Fanning, a survey course of Western, Asian and Indian art history. Textbook is Art through the Ages by Helen Gardner, in which he makes several drawings. Takes drawing class taught by Hoyt Sherman, Drawing from Life. Learns about the concept of kinesthetic drawing, which is based on psychological optics. Will remain deeply influenced by Sherman’s idea of art reflected in statements such as, "Organized perception is what art is all about"⁷Lichtenstein in the interview Swenson 1963, p. 62. —is deeply influenced by Sherman. 

1942

Moves to student housing; creates drawing of roommate’s feet soaking in a basin. Among works admired at the time are Picasso’s Guernica and Honoré Daumier’s The Third-Class Carriage, c. 1862–64.⁸Oral history interview with Charles Batterman, August 2002, RLF Archives. Paintings at university are primarily on paper or inexpensive chipboard. Students use big cans of soybean-based paint similar to water-based house paint.⁹Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein, November 15, 1963–January 15, 1964. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. [Conducted by Richard Baker Brown.

Winter Quarter 1942

Attends Intermediate Design taught by Frank Roos, and Sculpture taught by Erwin Frey, where he works with Plasticine. Frey and the artist's roommate Charles Batterman recall Lichtenstein making a blue ceramic water buffalo sculpture. Other subjects include mechanical drawing, economics, humanities and the natural sciences.¹⁰Oral history interview with Charles Batterman by Avis Berman, August 2002, RLF Archive; Oral history interview with Eugene Friley by Avis Berman, June 20, 2003, RLF Archives. Eugene Friley was a fellow student at Ohio State University who studied ceramic engineering and ceramic art.

Spring Quarter 1942

Takes first class in oil painting, taught by James Grimes, during which students begin to stretch their own canvases. Also takes Evolution of Design taught by Wayne Anderla.

Summer Quarter 1942

Takes Portrait Painting with Grimes, Principles of Drawing and Principles of Economics.

Fall Quarter 1942

Continues classes in drawing, as well as Principles of Advertising and Technical Problems.

1943

February 6, 1943

Drafted and inducted into the US Army. Enters active service three days later.

March 1943

Begins basic training at Camp Hulen, Texas, an anti-aircraft training base.

June 1943–March 1944

Applies to Army Special Training Program (A.S.T.P.). Fails medical science exam but passes in languages. Army cuts languages program and instead sends him for engineering training at DePaul University, Chicago. Takes classes in math, chemistry, physics, geography, speech and history; twenty-four weeks in, Army cancels engineering training program.

While in Chicago, travels downtown to the Loop to hear jazz.

1944

Works from this period include black ink or charcoal drawings of the rugged terrain of Mississippi swamps.¹¹Lichtenstein, Roy. Letter to Milton and Beatrice Lichtenstein. October 9, 1944. Roy Lichtenstein Foundation records and Roy Lichtenstein papers. Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

January 1944

Passes his physical exam for the Air Corps.

February 1944

Transferred to Fort Sheridan in Illinois. Studies French.

March 1944

Arrives at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, for pilot-training program. Hitchhikes with fellow students to New Orleans. Due to the enormous number of casualties in the Battle of the Bulge and the consequent need for soldiers to replace them, the pilot-training program is terminated a month later, so soldiers could be sent abroad.

April 1944

Arrives at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and reports to 69th Infantry Division, Ninth Army headquarters. Serves as orderly to a two-star major general. Duties include enlarging William H. Mauldin cartoons in military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, for commanding officer.

June 1944

Works as draftsman and artist in G-3 (Plans and Training).

August 1944

Draws maps in the Intelligence Section of the Engineers Battalion, 69th Infantry Division, Ninth Army.

December 1944

Division is shipped to Europe. Army has a library; reads Edgar Allan Poe and philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard and John Locke. In London, sees Paul Cézanne and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec works in an exhibition. Buys a book on Chinese painting and sends it home in a duffle along with a collection of African masks.¹²Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein by Frederic Tuten, January 22, 1988; Lichtenstein, Roy. Letter to Milton and Beatrice Lichtenstein. December 21, 1944. Roy Lichtenstein Foundation records and Roy Lichtenstein papers. Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

Continues to draw in conté crayon, black ink and ink wash on paper. Subjects include trees in London parks.

1945

During his travels, sends home drawings and paintings in black-and-white tempera. Also paints with watercolor.

This year, Hoyt Sherman realizes his "flash lab," a totally darkened room in which a tachistoscope projects slides of objects in quick succession. Students draw what they see based on the automatic recall of afterimages formed on their retinas. Does not experience Sherman’s flash lab.

January 1945

Begins combat operations in France, working in an office a mile from the front. Keeps drawing in between Army tasks, such as helping to maintain roads and bridges. On a furlough to Paris, buys three portfolios of reproductions of Rembrandt etchings.¹³Lichtenstein, Roy. Letter to Milton and Beatrice Lichtenstein. July 1, 1945. Roy Lichtenstein Foundation records and Roy Lichtenstein papers. Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

February 1945

Arrives in Belgium.

May 1945

69th Infantry Division is the first to meet up with the Soviet Army. Awarded a battle star ribbon although not directly involved in the fighting. Transferred to the Ninth Army. Continues combat operations in Germany.

Receives oil paints from home.

June 1945

Sent to Oberammergau, a picturesque German town in the Bavarian Alps. Works at the Army’s Information and Education School. Prepares and delivers lectures on the War in Europe and the Pacific based on information he reads in Fortune magazine.¹⁴Lichtenstein, Roy. Letter to Milton and Beatrice Lichtenstein. June 8, 1945. Roy Lichtenstein Foundation records and Roy Lichtenstein papers. Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

September 1945

Travels by rail to Paris on a three-day pass and visits the Louvre. Remarks on El Greco’s Christ on the Cross Adored by Two Donors, c. 1590, Cézanne’s The Card Players, 1890–92, and Daumier’s La Blanchisseuse, 1863. At the Louvre bookshop, buys a small book on Georges Rouault. In a letter home, writes of doing "stacks of drawings" and of intention to study painting, citing Picasso, Rouault and Matisse. Buys books on Francisco Goya’s etchings and Georges Seurat’s paintings, even though he later remarks that he was not that inspired by the latter’s work.¹⁵Lichtenstein, Roy. Letters to Milton and Beatrice Lichtenstein. October 1, 4, 7, 1945, Roy Lichtenstein Foundation records and Roy Lichtenstein papers. Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. 

October 15, 1945

Selected to attend French Language and Civilization course at the Sorbonne in Paris through the Army’s civilian program. Begins classes in late October where he resides at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris on Boulevard Jourdan in the southern outskirts of the city. Passes Picasso’s studio on Rue des Grands-Augustins but decides not to intrude.¹⁶Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein, November 15, 1963–January 15, 1964. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. [Conducted by Richard Brown Baker.]

December 2, 1945

Arrives in the U.S. after being given a compassionate discharge because his father is very ill.

December 5, 1945

Reports to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for out-processing.

1946

January 11, 1946

Discharged from the Army with the rank of Private First Class (PFC) as a Draftsman 070 and returns home to New York. Regularly visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art with mother and sister.

February 13, 1946

Milton Lichtenstein dies.

March 1946

Returns to Ohio State University (OSU) to complete degree. Courses include History of Renaissance Art taught by Robert Fanning and Watercolor Painting taught by Carolyn Bradley.

June 1946

Receives BFA degree from OSU, College of Education, School of Fine and Applied Arts. Lives and works in a small room in a converted mess hall off campus.

September 1946

Joins OSU School of Fine and Applied Arts faculty as an instructor.

Creates stone-like sculptures, some of which are exhibited in the new faculty display. Figures have Picassoesque features and a pre-Columbian style. Works on paintings with geometric abstractions in the style of Piet Mondrian, but with a different palette. Fewer than 10 canvases are made and later destroyed.

October 1946

Teaches drawing and design courses. Takes up Hoyt Sherman’s “Flash Lab” method, where students sit in a totally darkened room in which a tachistoscope projects slides of objects in quick succession. They draw what they see based on the automatic recall of afterimages formed on their retinas. Creates own version of a flash lab, stacking boxes in a darkened room and asking students to draw the afterimage using charcoal or crayon on paper.

Lives at 804 Neil Avenue in downtown Columbus.

1947

Paintings of this period depict bulbous figures with animated features. Continues to work in ceramic. The artist calls his work of this period "a little bit like Paul Klee, or maybe [Joan] Miro."¹⁷Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein by Frederic Tuten, February 25, 1971. Also around this time, gets a centrifuge casting machine to create silver jewelry using lost wax process. Buys a small electrical kiln for enameling.

January 1947

Enrolls in the Graduate School of Fine and Applied Arts at Ohio State University (OSU). Travels with artist friend Charles Csuri to see various art exhibitions in New York.

Spring 1947

Classes include Technical Problems and Water Color Painting with Carolyn Bradley.

Occasionally returns to New York with friends Stanley Twardowicz and Charles Csuri to visit galleries, especially Charles Egan and Betty Parsons.

Fall 1947

Enrolls in Advanced Research Problems and Research in Art History: Criticism and Philosophy of Art.

1948

During this time, produces pastels, oils and drawings. Subjects include musicians, landscapes and fairy tales. Begins showing work at Ten-Thirty Gallery, on third floor of State Theater Building in Cleveland. Algesa O’Sickey, wife of faculty colleague Joseph O’Sickey, is one of the directors.

May 29–June 18, 1948

First group exhibition in New York, at Chinese Gallery, which shows American art along with classical Chinese art forms, including ceramics.

Fall 1948

Classes include Art History Research and Criticism.

1949

Roy Harvey Pearce, professor at Ohio State University, shows him a book on nineteenth-century American painter George Catlin. North American Indian themes begin to appear in paintings and drawings in 1950.¹⁸Oral history interview with Marie and Roy Harvey Pearce by Avis Berman, August 1, 2001, RLF Archives.

March 1949

Receives Masters of Fine Art from Ohio State University (OSU). Completes MFA thesis, "Paintings, Drawings, and Pastels," which includes a series of prose poems celebrating various artists, including Matisse, Klee, Picasso, Rousseau, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Lautrec, Rembrandt and the Song Dynasty painter Ma Yuan.

Spring 1949

Through the O’Sickeys, meets Isabel Sarisky (née Wilson b. July 26, 1921 in Van Wert, Ohio; d. Sept. 25, 1980), who worked at Ten-Thirty Gallery. She is recently divorced from prominent Cleveland artist Michael Sarisky (b. 1906; d. January 12, 1974).

June 12, 1949

Marries Isabel Wilson.

Richard Gosminski takes over Isabel’s role as assistant director of Ten-Thirty Gallery when she moves to Columbus, Ohio. Algesa O’Sickey steps down as director in December.

Summer 1949

Begins class work toward PhD, taking courses in Minor Problems in Painting, Technical Problems: Painting and Minor Problems: Arts Education.

Fall 1949

Takes painting classes with Hoyt Sherman and James Grimes.

December 7–30, 1949

Ten-Thirty Gallery exhibits twenty oils and pastels along with work by ceramists Harry Schulke and Charles Lakosky. Works are described by Cleveland Press as "flat abstracts with objects like animals, plants and faces being faintly recognizable."¹⁹Frankel 1949

1950

Rents two-story house at 1496 Perry Street in Columbus with Isabel, which doubles as a studio. Isabel finds work at Arts and Crafts, the interior design department of Tibbals-Crumley-Musson Architects; coordinates exhibitions of artisan jewelry and ceramics. Around this time, Roy purchases centrifuge casting machine traditionally used by dentists and jewelers and starts making jewelry.²⁰Joseph O'Sickey, letter to RLF, October 2007, RLF Archives. Roy regularly attends jazz Philharmonic performances in Columbus. Teaches himself to play the flute.

Begins to use paint cans full of sand to counterbalance an old easel in order to rotate canvases. Uses a mirror to see paintings flopped to abstract the subject matter and concentrate on compositional unity.²¹Lichtenstein’s student, Tom Doyle, recalls the custom easels and process of using a mirror in his studio (Oral history interview with Tom Doyle by Avis Berman, January 21, 2002, RLF Archives). For more on the artist’s easels see: RLCR 2, RLCR 1924. Flowers and birds, along with medieval imagery, account for much of subject matter. According to friends Joseph and Algesa O’Sickey, he was influenced by a book they owned about the Bayeux Tapestry.²²Oral history interview with Joseph and Algesa O’Sickey by Avis Berman, March 5, 2002, RLF Archives.

Summer 1950

Takes Mural Painting, Research: Oil and Watercolor Painting and final Technical Problems class.

July 28, 1950

Denied tenure at OSU.

August 1950

Woodcut To Battle takes first prize at the Ohio State Fair.

1951

Over the next several years, works various jobs in Cleveland, most lasting about six months each. Hand-paints black-and-white dial markings on volt and amp meters for Hickok Electrical Instrument Co. Introduced by his close friend Stanley Landesman to artists Herman Cherry and Warren Brandt. While still working in Columbus, Ohio, starts to bring paintings to galleries in New York, such as M. Knoedler and Sidney Janis. Goes to Cedar Tavern on University Place and sometimes talks to artists such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, but is too shy to really get to know them.²³Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein by Billy Klüver and Julie Martin, August 16, 1990, RLF Archives.

Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New York (32 E. 57th St.) begins carrying his jewelry.²⁴See archival material in 1948–56 Cleveland and New York Unconfirmed Group Exhibitions, Roy Lichtenstein CV, 1956, RLF Archives.

Begins to incorporate titles and advertising copy in woodcut compositions and paintings such as Emigrant Train After William Ranney. By this time, already copying comic book images into notebooks.²⁵Sketchbooks from the early 1950s remain unlocated. Oral history interview with Julian Stanczak by Avis Berman, January 31, 2003, RLF Archives. Julian Stanczak was an artist who studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art during the 1950s when Lichtenstein was living in Cleveland.

March 21–May 20, 1951

To Battle is exhibited in a Brooklyn Museum juried show, Fifth National Print Annual Exhibition, and receives a museum purchase award.

April 30–May 12, 1951

First solo exhibition in New York, at Carlebach Gallery, which includes: oils, pastels and assemblages made from wood, metal pieces and found objects including screws and drill buffers.

June 1951

Moves to Cleveland and sets up home and studio on the second floor of the Music Center Building at 1150 Prospect Avenue, across from Gray’s Armory. Isabel finds work as an assistant interior decorator at Jane L. Hanson, Inc.

Paints an Early Renaissance-style self-portrait.

August 24—31 1951

The sculpture King on Horseback takes first prize in sculpture at the Ohio State Fair.

December 2, 1951

Exhibits "colorful silkscreen prints" for The "Craftsman" Christmas exhibition of Art Colony Galleries in Cleveland.²⁶Cleveland Plain Dealer 1951

December 31, 1951–January 12, 1952

Solo exhibition at John Heller Gallery in New York, consisting of sixteen paintings based on American frontier themes and several self-portraits as a knight. Hoyt Sherman contributes a brief preface to the show’s brochure. One painting in the show, The Death of the General, is reproduced in Artnews and Art Digest.

1952

Contributes work to juried exhibitions, including Denver City Building, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the University of Nebraska. A charcoal from this year, Two Indians (Study), is included in a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Decorates display windows and floors part-time at a Halle Brothers’ Euclid Huron department store.

March 2–22, 1952

Solo exhibition at the Art Colony Galleries, Cleveland. Show elicits mixed responses. One pencil drawing, which includes a photo of a castle taped onto it, is described by a Cleveland News art critic as “truly like the doodling of a five-year-old.” Is referred to as an “odd talent.”²⁷Bruner 1952

1953

Works from his apartment at 11483 Hessler Road, Cleveland. Audits classes at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

January 26–February 7, 1953

Second solo exhibition at John Heller Gallery, consisting of oils and watercolors with Americana themes. The Statesman is reproduced in Artnews in black and white.

September 20–October 5, 1953

Contributes work to the third season opening exhibition of the Art Colony Galleries.

November 1953

Receives an award for woodcut A Cherokee Brave in the Contemporary Printmaking Exhibition at OSU.

1954

Moves to an apartment at 1863 Crawford Street in Cleveland. Teaches drawing at the Cooper School, a commercial art school in Cleveland. Around this time, designs logo featuring a knife, spoon and fork for Hy-Decker Industrial Caterers, Inc., a commercial catering company run by his friends Margaret and George (Hy) Silverman.

March 8–27, 1954

Third solo exhibition at John Heller Gallery, with paintings on Americana themes and others that feature depictions of clock and gear parts, based on engineering blueprints that echo Thomas E. French’s Engineering Drawing, illustrated by Hoyt Sherman. Critics Robert Rosenblum and Fairfield Porter review the show for Art Digest and Artnews, respectively.

October 7–24, 1954

Included in Cleveland Museum of Art’s show of "spontaneous and unrehearsed drawings" by local artists,²⁸Frankel 1954 however his works are consistently rejected for the museum’s coveted invitational May Show.

October 9, 1954

Son David Hoyt Lichtenstein is born.

Mid-1950s

Creates mosaic tabletops for clients of Isabel, with welding done by friend Bryce Ford.²⁹Oral history interview with Joseph and Algesa O’Sickey by Mary Lee Corlett, April 20, 1992, RLF Archives; Oral history interview with Joseph and Algesa O’Sickey by Avis Berman, March 5, 2002, RLF Archives.

1955

During this period, creates several wall-mounted assemblages of painted wood.

January 1, 1955

Weatherford Surrenders to Jackson is purchased by collectors and donated to the Butler Museum of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio.

January 9, 1955

Art Colony Galleries exhibits thirteen paintings in a three-person show that also includes Christine Miller and Louis Penfield. Cleveland Plain Dealer describes paintings in the show as "Klee-like and surprising."³⁰Metzler 1955

October–November 1955

Displays jewelry at the Brooklyn Museum Gallery Shop.

Works on a model designed by architect Robert Little for Life magazine.

1956

Creates first proto-Pop work, a lithograph called Ten Dollar Bill (Ten Dollars). Returns to imagery of the Wild West.

January 1956

Mechanism, Cross Section is purchased by the same collectors who bought Weatherford Surrenders to Jackson and is donated to the Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan.

March 10, 1956

Son Mitchell Wilson Lichtenstein is born.

1957

Buys first home at 2421 Edgehill Road in Cleveland Heights and sets up a studio there.

Works as an engineering draftsman making furniture in the Product and Process Department at Republic Steel Company.

Abstract Expressionist style appears in paintings. Later recalls that some of these canvases were used as drop cloths for first Pop-inspired works.³¹Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein by Clare Bell, 1993, RLF Archives. Style changes to a lyrical abstraction with hatched brushwork featuring images found in books of eighteenth-century French salon paintings by François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Antoine Watteau and Rococo oils by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, among others.

January 8–26, 1957

Solo exhibition at John Heller Gallery, consisting of paintings on Americana themes. Works described by critics as "acrid in color" and "flatly patterned … spontaneously felt depictions of a grown-up's child-world."³²Sawin 1957; Newbill 1957

February 1957

Exhibits with Group 5, an association of Cleveland artists who banded together in defiance of their omissions from the May show at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Lichtenstein shows several paintings and constructions.

May 1957

Shows lithographs at Karamu House, Cleveland, a space featuring artists working in dance, printmaking, theater and writing.

Summer 1957

Offered assistant professorship of art at State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego to teach industrial design. Hoping to get closer to New York, accepts the position.

Moves home and studio to 11 West 6th Street in Oswego, where his family shares a two-family house. Uses an opaque projector to trace a large image of Mickey Mouse on son Mitchell’s bedroom wall.

1958

Drawings include renderings of cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny using brush and india ink.

March 1958

Six oil paintings are among those Heller sends for an exhibition in Los Angeles.³³Oswegonian 1958c

June 1958

Approaches Csuri’s dealer in New York, Harry Salpeter, whose gallery is across from Heller’s on 57th Street, about representation. Salpeter turns him down.

August 1958

Teaches Industrial Art Design summer course at SUNY Oswego and graduate course in painting. Hosts salon-style open-house evenings for students.

Leaves John Heller Gallery.

October 1958

Participates in a group show at Condon Riley Gallery in New York. Housed in a Beaux-Arts-style townhouse a floor below the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, the gallery space featured walls that simulated dark velvet with a floating ceiling that hid the lighting.

1959

Moves with family to 52 Church Street in Oswego. Maintains a studio in one of the bedrooms. During the summer, continues to teach Industrial Arts and graduate courses in painting.

Finishes a group of early Brushstroke works created by wrapping a towel around his arm, dipping it against a palette with several different colors on it, and then dragging it across the canvas in broad strokes. These are later exhibited alongside his Pop Brushstrokes at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in 2001.³⁴Oral history interview with Joseph and Algesa O’Sickey by Avis Berman, March 5, 2002, RLF Archives.

March 1959

Exhibits oil paintings in Sixth Annual Central Art Exhibition at the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts.

Spring 1959

Contributes the cover design for Polemic, one of two prints done for the magazine published under a grant from the Adelbert College Student Council at Western Reserve University, Cleveland. His highly abstract image in black with the title of the magazine in red lettering is hand printed at a commercial letterpress.

June 2–27, 1959

Untitled abstractions are shown for the first time in a solo exhibition at Condon Riley Gallery, New York. Some paintings feature traces of bright color and instant coffee on an unprimed canvas.³⁵Busche 1988, p. 207

1960

Spring 1960

Resigns from SUNY Oswego after accepting assistant professorship of art at Douglass College, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey. Teaches Art Structure and Design and Advanced Design beginning July 1. Shares an office with Geoffrey Hendricks. Robert Miller, future art dealer, serves as his teaching assistant.

Moves into a house at 66 S. Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, New Jersey, where he sets up his studio in the bedroom. Bolts a two-by-four to the ceiling, to which he attaches clip-on lights. Paintings are hung throughout the house.

Fall 1960

Through his Douglass colleague Allan Kaprow, meets various artists involved with Fluxus and Happenings including Claes Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras and George Segal.³⁶Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein by Clare Bell, 1993, RLF Archives. Attends some of Kaprow’s informal Happenings.

During this time, continues to seek further gallery representation. Hangs untitled abstract canvases in former student Tom Doyle’s building so he can show them to Henry Geldzahler, a curator at the Met, and Ivan Karp of Leo Castelli Gallery, but Doyle forgets to unlock the door to the building.³⁷Oral history interview with Tom Doyle by Avis Berman, January 21, 2002, RLF Archives. Brings paintings to Leo Castelli Gallery and shows them to the dealer and his former wife, Ileana Sonnabend.

1961

Regularly visits Martha Jackson Gallery, where he sees works by Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg and Allan Kaprow.³⁸Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein by Clare Bell, 1993, RLF Archives.

Works on a series of finished black-and-white drawings in pen, marker and india ink applied by brush and through stencils.

January 11–27, 1961

Exhibits abstract brushstroke paintings at Douglass College. One work is painted on several pieces of refrigerator-crate plywood nailed together.

February 1961

Meets Letty Lou Eisenhauer, an artist and student who works part-time as Art Department secretary. She will later become his girlfriend.

June 1961

First Pop works demonstrate what the artist refers to as paintings without any expressionism in them. Pushes oil paint through the holes of a plastic dog-grooming brush without its bristles to create dot effect. Works feature blown-up versions of advertised consumer goods and other well-known characters including Popeye and Wimpy, as well as panels from the comic strips Buck Rogers, Steve Roper and Winnie Winkle. Experiments with other ways to apply dots, from using a lightly loaded paintbrush, which he drags over the canvas, to employing a small, square, handmade stencil made from thin aluminum with hand-drilled holes. Uses pre-primed white canvas. Flat areas are done in primary oil paint colors and outlined with black. Some paintings are done exclusively in black and white or blue and white. Creates several diptychs joined with hinges.

Fall 1961

Allan Kaprow arranges a meeting with Ivan Karp of Leo Castelli. Brings The Engagement Ring, Girl with Ball, Look Mickey and Step-on Can with Leg. Castelli contacts the artist several weeks later and agrees to represent him. Around this time, Ileana Sonnabend and Irving Blum also see Lichtenstein's work and offer to represent him. Warhol comes by the gallery and sees Lichtenstein’s work and invites Karp to come see his own paintings.³⁹Waldman 1993b, p. 23; Oral history interview with Ivan C. Karp, March 12, 1969. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. [Conducted by Paul Cummings.]  Starts a group of portraits using identical source imagery, the first two named after Kaprow and Karp.

September 22–October 14, 1961

Girl with Ball is added to Castelli’s show An Exhibition in Progress, the first public showing of one of his Pop works. The exhibition includes works by Lee Bontecou, John Chamberlain, Nassos Daphnis, Edward Higgins, Jasper Johns, Bernard Langlais, Robert Moskowitz, Robert Rauschenberg, Salvatore Scarpitta, Frank Stella, Cy Twombly and Jack Tworkov.

October 1961

Consigns first works for sale to Castelli, including Washing Machine, Emeralds, Roto Broil and Keds.

November 1961

Sends a selection of work to Castelli for sale including, Mr. Bellamy, Yellow Garbage Can, Red Flowers, Step-on Can with Leg, Black Flowers, I Can See the Whole Room! ... And There’s Nobody in It!, Girl and Rope Ladder, Cup of Coffee and Bread in Bag. The first work sold by Castelli is I Can See the Whole Room! ... And There’s Nobody in It! to Burton and Emily Hall Tremaine of Meriden, Connecticut. Later that same month, New York collector Richard Brown Baker buys Washing Machine.

December 1961

Chicago collector Walter A. Netsch buys Black Flowers.

1962

Continues to live and work in Highland Park. 

Experiments with different acrylic paints such as Liquitex. Chooses Bocour Magna as his preferred medium and uses a Magna-based varnish between coats. Begins to use an industrial perforated metal screen from Beckley Perforating Co. in Garwood, N.J., for his simulated Benday dots. Continues to use oil paint for dots and, later, diagonals.⁴⁰For more information on the artist's materials, see Guide to the Reader: 4.14. PAINTING

First paintings based on panels from All-American Men of War comics, such as Blam and Takka Takka. The five-panel work Live Ammo features one diptych and three single panels (RLCR 706, RLCR 707 and RLCR 709).

Makes first paintings based on reproductions of works by Picasso and Cézanne, as well as Portrait of Madame Cézanne, an enlarged version of a black-and-white outline diagram by Cézanne scholar Erle Loran.

Isolates the words "Art" and "In" on canvas. Later recalls wanting to make one with the word 'Flat' but soon abandons the idea.⁴¹Waldman 1971a, p. 28

Makes first commissioned print, On, for Billy Klüver and noted Dada and Surrealist expert Arturo Schwarz for The International Anthology of Contemporary Engravings: The International Avant-Garde: America Discovered, Volume 5 (published in 1964 by Galleria Schwarz, Milan).

Switches from ink to pencil for finished black-and-white drawings. Develops a technique for black-and-white drawings that involves placing a sheet of paper on a window screen and rubbing it with graphite to achieve the look of machine-applied dots. Finished drawings often depict subjects different from those in paintings and do not require preliminary sketches. Simultaneously works on paintings and these drawings in no clear chronological order.

February 10–March 3, 1962

First solo show of paintings at Leo Castelli.

February 26, 1962

Newsweek magazine reviews Leo Castelli show and reproduces Girl with Ball.

March 1962

Is linked for the first time with Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist as a cohesive group (together with Peter Saul and Alan Watts) in Max Kozloff’s article, "Pop Culture, Metaphysical Disgust, and the New Vulgarians," in Art International.

April 1962

Donald Judd reviews Leo Castelli show for Arts Magazine.

April 3–May 13, 1962

The Kiss is included in 1961, a group exhibition at Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts, curated by Douglas MacAgy.

May 26–June 30, 1962

Black-and-white drawings are shown for the first time in Drawings at Leo Castelli.

June 15, 1962

Among several artists featured in "Something New Is Cooking" in Life magazine.

August 6–31, 1962

Art of Two Ages: The Hudson River School and Roy Lichtenstein at Mi Chou Gallery in New York features Pop paintings along with paintings by Albert Bierstadt, John William Casilear, Frederic Edwin Church, Jasper Cropsey and Asher B. Durand. Mi Chou Gallery borrowed the nineteenth-century works from Kennedy Galleries in New York.

September 25–October 19, 1962

Comic-strip and consumer-goods paintings are shown on the West Coast for the first time in the group exhibition New Painting of Common Objects at the Pasadena Art Museum, curated by Walter Hopps.

October 24–November 7, 1962

Included in Art 1963: A New Vocabulary, organized by Joan Kron and Audrey Sabol for the Art Council of the YM/YWHA in Philadelphia, featuring paintings, collages, assemblages, combines and machines by Bertolt Brecht, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Allan Kaprow, Marisol, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Jean Tinguely and Alan Watts. Exhibition brochure includes statements by the artists and a dictionary of terms written by Billy Klüver to describe the new art.

October 31–December 1, 1962

Included in Sidney Janis Gallery exhibition New Realists, featuring "factual paintings and sculpture" by American and European artists, along with Jim Dine, Yves Klein, Claes Oldenburg, Rosenquist, Mimmo Rotella, George Segal, Jean Tinguely and Andy Warhol.⁴²Janis 1962

November 1962

Included in Artnews essay, "The New American 'Sign Painters,'" by Gene R. Swenson, along with Jim Dine, Stephen Durkee, Robert Indiana, James Rosenquist, Richard Smith and Andy Warhol.

Work is on view in MoMA’s dining room.

November 18–December 15, 1962

Takka Takka is included in My Country ’Tis of Thee at the Dwan Gallery in Los Angeles, along with works by Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Edward Kienholz, Marisol, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann.

Head: Red and Yellow is acquired by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

December 4, 1962

Speaker on "The Unpopular Artist in a Popular Society" panel held in New York.

December 13, 1962

Attends symposium on Pop art at MoMA. Speakers include Dore Ashton, Henry Geldzahler, Hilton Kramer, Stanley Kunitz and Leo Steinberg, with Peter Selz as moderator. "Pop" art is chosen as name for the new movement.⁴³Press Release, Museum of Modern Art, December 3, 1962.

December 26, 1962

Among eleven artists chosen to create an outdoor mural for Johnson’s Theaterama building, part of the New York State Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, 1964–65.

1963

Moves for a brief period of time into his first studio in New York, on Broad Street near Coenties Slip.

Begins group of canvases depicting women from the DC Comics' Girls’ Romances and Secret Hearts series. Benday dots are doubled in areas, such as lips, by shifting the screen. Some are done in red and blue to create the effect of purple. Several canvases feature mad scientists from science fiction comic books.

Hires Robert Miller, former teaching assistant and future art dealer, as studio assistant. One of his tasks is to paint in Benday dots along with assisting with the World Fair Mural at full scale.

Begins to use lithographic rubbing crayon in black-and-white drawings to achieve larger, more uniform, machine-looking dots. Completes first work in acrylic on Plexiglas. Makes several more on plastic, which appeals to interest in achieving an "antiseptical industrial look."⁴⁴Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein, November 15, 1963–January 15, 1964. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. [Conducted by Richard Brown Baker.] Around this time starts to project and trace drawings (or source material such as comic or newspaper clippings) onto canvas using a Postoscope.⁴⁵Lobel 2002, p. 26

March 14–June 12, 1963

Included in Six Painters and the Object at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, organized by Lawrence Alloway, along with Dine, Johns, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist and Warhol. Show travels throughout the United States.

April 1963

Three paintings included in Pop! Goes the Easel at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, organized by Douglas MacAgy.

April 1–20, 1963

First exhibition at Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, featuring works from 1961–63.

April 18–June 2, 1963

Included in The Popular Image at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, organized by Alice Denney.

April 28–May 26, 1963

Leo Castelli lends Girl at Piano and Magnifying Glass for Popular Art: Artistic Projections of Common American Symbols at the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City.

May 10–June 20, 1963

Included in first European group show, De A à Z: 31 Peintures américains choisis par The Art Institute of Chicago, at the American Cultural Center, Paris.

May 17, 1963

Time magazine publishes a letter by comic artist William Overgard stating that I Can See the Whole Room! ... And There’s Nobody in It! is taken from the last panel of his August 6, 1961, comic strip Steve Roper. Overgard’s panel and the painting are both reproduced.⁴⁶“Letter to the Editor,” Time 81, no. 20 (May 17, 1963), p. 17.

June 1963

Commissioned by poet Walasse Ting to contribute illustrations to his collection of poems entitled 1¢ Life.

June 5–30, 1963

First solo exhibition in Europe, at Galerie Sonnabend, Paris. Travels to Paris for opening, which is his first time back since the war.

Summer–Winter 1963

Works are included in shows in Lausanne, Toronto, London, Turin and Gstaad.

Summer 1963

Brings the family to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he spends time with Ivan Karp and his family.

Takes leave of absence from Douglass College.

September 28–October 24, 1963

Second solo exhibition at Leo Castelli.

October 1963

First of a series of interviews conducted by John Coplans appears in Artforum.

October 1, 1963

Sells Highland Park home. Moves with Eisenhauer to the second floor of 36 W. 26th Street, which doubles as a studio. Buys a house for his family in Princeton, New Jersey.

October 24–November 23, 1963

Pop works are shown for the first time in Britain in The Popular Image at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, organized by Alan Solomon.

November 1963

Swenson publishes "What Is Pop Art? Answers from Eight Painters, Part I: Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol," in Artnews.

November 19–December 15, 1963

Included in Mixed Media and Pop Art at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, organized by Gordon M. Smith, along with Dine, Johns, Oldenburg, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist and Warhol, as well as lesser-known artists in the museum’s collection.

1964

Makes large canvases of composition notebooks and works that bear close resemblance to Mondrian’s abstractions. As canvas sizes increase, begins to make Benday dots larger. Starts to prime own canvases with white underpaint. Begins series of cartoon-style landscapes and seascapes inspired by cartoon backgrounds. Creates first sunrise and sunset works.

Samuel J. Wagstaff, Jr., curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, invites him to contribute a screenprint to the portfolio X + X (Ten Works by Ten Painters). In response, he makes a print on clear plastic entitled Sandwich and Soda. An impression is sent to the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.

Billy Klüver and Arturo Schwarz publish The International Anthology of Contemporary Engravings: The International Avant-Garde: America Discovered, Volume 5 (Galleria Schwarz, Milan), which includes On.

Buys two mannequin heads and paints one like a cartoon girl, which will lead to his series of ceramic heads.⁴⁷Glenn, C. 1977b, p. 7–8

January 31, 1964

Life magazine publishes article entitled "Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?" The idea comes from author Dorothy Seiberling, who at the time was married to Leo Steinberg. Both are supporters of the artist, who approves of the idea for the title.

April 1964

His cover design for Art in America features "pop panorama" drawing of the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair.⁴⁸Table of Contents, Art in America 52, no. 2 (April 1964).

April 22, 1964

New York World’s Fair Mural (Girl in Window) is among murals featured in the New York State Pavilion at the New York State Fair.

Spring 1964

Meets Dorothy Herzka (b. 1939; d. 2024) at Paul Bianchini Gallery in New York (16 E. 78th St.) during preparations for The American Supermarket organized by Ben Birillo, an artist and collector who worked in advertising.

Artist Jerry Foyster introduces Lichtenstein to the material Rowlux, a polycarbonate sheeting with interesting optical properties, which he soon experiments with in collages.⁴⁹Oral history interview with Ben Birillo by Avis Berman, January 4, 2002, RLF Archives.

With help from Ben Birillo, experiments applying enamel motif to porcelain enamel butcher trays featuring image of a hot dog. Creates enamel edition, Hot Dog, inspired enamel subway signs.⁵⁰Waldman 1971b, p. 213

Seeks out ARPOR (Architectural Porcelain Fabricators, Inc.) in Orangeburg, New York, to create enamels featuring cloudscapes, sunrises and scenes of girls based on comic-book panels.

June 1964

Included in Bruce Glaser roundtable radio discussion on New York WBAI that includes Oldenburg and Warhol. The transcript is published in Artforum in February 1966.

June 30, 1964

Resigns from Douglass College faculty.

October 6, 1964

Grand opening of American Supermarket, which includes works by a number of Pop artists. Visitors can buy items and put them in shopping bags that feature either Lichtenstein's image of a Thanksgiving turkey or Warhol's Campbell’s tomato soup. The show eventually travels to Rome and Venice.

October 24–November 19, 1964

Temple of Apollo, employing classical art reference, is shown at Leo Castelli, along with other landscapes.

November 24, 1964

Solo exhibition of landscapes and girls at Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles. 

December 1964

Rosa Esman begins Tanglewood Press with the portfolio New York Ten, which includes Seascape (1), his first color screenprint on Rowlux.

December 7, 1964

Makes Spear-Bearer costume in which he performs with Eisenhauer and others in Dick Higgins’s opera Hrušalk at Café au Go Go in New York.

1965

Begins collaboration with Rutgers colleague and potter Hui Ka Kwong to create series of ceramic heads and another of stacked cups and saucers based on diner cutlery and glassware. Molds for the dishes are purchased from Stewart Clay Company and Holland Mold Company, both in New York. Employs decals of ceramic dots, which he has commercially silk-screened, that can be cut to desired configurations. For heads he devises punched-out tape stencils for Hui to spray color through evenly to their contours. Black lines are painted by hand.⁵¹Glenn, C. 1977b, p. 8-10; Glenn, C. 1977a, p.19

John Rublowsky’s Pop Art: Images of the American Dream, the first book devoted to the movement, includes Ken Heyman’s photo of the artist unrolling Look Mickey in his studio.

Dealers Marian Goodman, Ursula Kalish and Sunny Sloane, along with art consultant and framer Barbara Kulicke, establish Multiples, Inc., for editioned pieces of art. Pistol Banner is the most popular and sells out.

Founded by Daniel Spoerri, Èdition MAT in Paris publishes the artist's boxed Rowlux entitled Seascape (II) in the portfolio Collection 65.

Creates three screenprints, Moonscape, Reverie and Sweet Dreams, Baby!, commissioned by Philip Morris, for 11 Pop Artists, Volume 1. Also, creates first large-scale enamel wall- and standing-sculptures with perforated metal screens.

February 1965

Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam purchases As I Opened Fire....

March 13, 1965

Contributes to Artist’s Key Club, a Happening orchestrated by Arman, where 104 keys to 104 Penn Station lockers are sold at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. Each locker has one signed work or one small gift by the participating artists. Contributes four signed drawings, including Kiss V (Study), No Thank You! (Study) and Ocean.

April 1965

Experiments with Modern motifs in poster of the World’s Fair for the National Cartoonists Society entitled This Must Be the Place. Gives remarks at National Cartoonists Society in New York at Reuben Awards dinner.⁵²There is some discrepancy in the RLF Archives as to whether this was an acceptance speech given in 1964 or 1965. Per Frey and Baetens 2019, Lichtenstein was invited to give remarks at the National Cartoonists Society's Nineteenth Annual Reuben Awards but was not an award recipient. It is likely the undated remarks draft located in RLF Archives and reprinted by Frey and Baetens is from this appearance in April 1965.

May 1965

Watches various Happenings, some by Claes Oldenburg and Lucas Samaras.⁵³Oral history interview with Roy Lichtenstein by Clare Bell, 1993, RLF Archives.

June 1, 1965

Second solo show at Galerie Sonnabend, Paris. Eisenhauer wears dress designed by Leigh Rudd using silk fabric featuring sunrise motif by the artist.

Fall 1965

First cartoon Brushstrokes painting is inspired by a science fiction comic-strip panel. Additional Brushstroke motifs follow.

October 31, 1965

Attends Idelle Weber’s Halloween party on Livingston Street in Brooklyn Heights dressed as Andy Warhol with Dorothy Herzka dressed as Edie Sedgwick.

November 20–December 11, 1965

Castelli presents Brushstrokes along with recent ceramic pieces.

December 7–31, 1965

Teardrop Pendant exhibited in Cloisonné Jewelry at Multiples, Inc.

December 22, 1965

Legally separates from Isabel Wilson Lichtenstein.

1966

Moves to 190 Bowery at Spring Street. Sets up residence and studio on fourth floor of the former German bank, built in 1917. The studio is better lit than previous studios, thanks to large windows that look out onto the Bowery. Adolph Gottlieb lives on the second floor. Paul Potash assists at the studio one day a week and learns how to construct the floor-to-ceiling easels. Hires Jerry Simon as assistant.

Begins Modern Painting series featuring Art Deco imagery. Also creates paintings featuring drips and blots of paint against graph-paper grid background. Begins to add motors to the back of his Rowlux seascapes to simulate the waves of an ocean. Adds specially made light fixtures to others whose painted bulb casings rotate through a spectrum of color gels to simulate different times of day.

February 1966

Contributes Atom Burst to the project Artists' Tower of Protest.

March 6–April 2, 1966

Travels to Caracas, Venezuela, promoting Jacinto Quirarte’s show Pop Art: La Nueva Imagen, sponsored by Tabacalera Nacional/Philip Morris International.

April 16, 1966

Participates in The Current Moment in Art symposium panel with Oldenburg, Ray Parker, Larry Poons, Larry Rivers and Frank Stella, sponsored by the San Francisco Art Institute.

April 27, 1966

Gala opening of Artists for CORE: Fifth Annual Art Exhibition and Sale at Grippi and Waddell, New York, which includes his limited-edition apple core button.

Summer 1966

Designs a limited-edition deluxe print on silver foil along with a larger commercial run of posters, based on 1930s Hollywood motifs, for Lincoln Center’s fourth New York Film Festival.

June 18–October 16, 1966

Represents United States at 33rd Venice Biennale with Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly and Jules Olitski, in exhibition organized by Henry Geldzahler. Travels to Venice for opening.

October 1966

Six-piece table setting of black-and-white china commissioned by Durable Dish Company for sale at Leo Castelli.

November 29, 1966–January 3, 1967

First solo museum exhibition, Works by Roy Lichtenstein at the Cleveland Museum of Art, organized by Ed Henning.

December 1966

Tate Gallery, London, purchases Whaam!

1967

Honored as a Regents Professor, University of California, Irvine.

Begins first Stretcher Frame paintings. Works with Hollander Workshop in New York to produce his lithograph Explosion for Portfolio 9.

Ugo Mulas’s images of the artist appear in Alan Solomon’s book New York: The New Art Scene.

March 23, 1967

Divorce from Isabel is made final.

April 1967

“How an Elvis Presley Becomes a Roy Lichtenstein” by Salvador Dalí appears in Arts Magazine.

April 18–May 28, 1967

Pasadena Art Museum, in collaboration with the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, presents first traveling retrospective, organized by Coplans. First solo exhibition catalogue published.

April 24, 1967

Interview conducted by David Sylvester in January 1966 airs on BBC Third Programme as "Roy Lichtenstein Talks to David Sylvester," for the series Ten American Artists.

April 28–October 29, 1967

Mural Big Modern Painting for Expo ’67 is included in American Painting Now at Expo ’67 US Pavilion in Montreal.

Summer 1967

Rents Larry Rivers’s house in Southampton, New York, with friends.

August 17–20, 1967

While artist-in-residence under the auspices of the Aspen Center for Contemporary Art, along with Allan D’Arcangelo, Les Levine, Robert Morris, Oldenburg and De Wain Valentine, they conceive of a Culture-In series of events that includes Lichtenstein's black-and-white taped and painted environment entitled Room in Aspen in the Brand Building.

Fall 1967

Collaborates with Guild Hall in Paramus, New Jersey, to fabricate Modern sculptures made of brass, mirror, tinted glass, marble, aluminum and wood.

September 1967

Submits Illustration for "Romanze, or The Music Students" (I) and Illustration for "Romanze, or The Music Students" (II) for In Memory of My Feelings: A Selection of Poems by Frank O’Hara, an unbound book (2,500 numbered on colophon page) of two musically derived Modern images drawn on a plastic surface. Edited by Bill Berkson, works are done in honor of poet Frank O’Hara, who died tragically in July, and who was an assistant curator at MoMA.

November 1967

Super Sunset Billboard is installed on Audrey Sabol’s tennis backboard in Villanova, Pennsylvania.

November 4–December 17, 1967

Stedelijk Museum presents first European retrospective. Show travels to three other museums, including Tate Gallery in 1968. It is the Tate’s first show dedicated to a living American artist.

1968

Makes first Modular painting featuring repeated design imagery, related to art project he did in grade school.⁵⁴Lichtenstein, R. 1996a, p. 153. Much like the Modern works, the Modular series is also related to Art Deco. In the same talk, Lichtenstein also remarked of Modular series: “It looked a little like Cubism for the home to me.”  Begins paintings on the theme of Claude Monet’s Haystacks. Continues making works featuring Art Deco and stretcher bar imagery.

January 1968

Hires Carlene Meeker as assistant. Her first task is to scrape off the dots incorrectly applied by one of his former assistants and repaint them; she stays on for twelve years. Often works on fifteen to twenty paintings at a time.⁵⁵Oral history interview with Carlene Meeker by Avis Berman, August 13, 2003, RLF Archives.

January 4, 1968

Arrives in London for opening of Tate retrospective. Travels to Morocco with his wife Dorothy Herzka after opening festivities.

Spring 1968

Commissioned to create an editioned sculpture to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of both the US Postal Service and International Airmail Service, Salute to Airmail.

May 24, 1968

Commissioned image of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy appears on cover of Time magazine.

June 1968

Invited by Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) curator Maurice Tuchman to participate in forthcoming Art and Technology exhibition. Works with Universal Studios in Los Angeles.

June 21, 1968

Time magazine features his rendering of a gun for its cover story, "The Gun in America."

Summer 1968

Visits Pasadena Art Museum with John Coplans and sees Constructivist paintings of heads by German Expressionist artist Alexei Jawlensky. Coplans discusses ideas for an exhibition on serial paintings.⁵⁶Coplans 1970c, p. 3

Purchases a house with friends on Wooley Street in Southampton.

Visiting faculty at Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.

August 1968

Paper boat Hat is included in S.M.S., no. 4, portfolio of artists’ works edited by William Copley and Dimitri Petrov.

September 1968

Joins artists’ boycott of Chicago museums over police action during the Democratic National Convention.⁵⁷Dan Sullivan, “Artists Agree on Boycott of Chicago Showings,” New York Times, September 5, 1968, p. 41.

September 10, 1968

Appointed Fellow for Life at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

September 12, 1968

Tours Universal Studios, Los Angeles.

September 17–October 27, 1968

Sees Coplans’s exhibition Serial Imagery at the Pasadena Art Museum.⁵⁸Coplans 1970c, p. 3

Begins series of Rouen Cathedrals.

October 1968

Submits collage for Modern Painting for New York State Mural (Town and Country), an unrealized project for the Legislative Office Building in Albany, N.Y., commissioned by Empire State Plaza Art Commission.

October 22–November 23, 1968

Charles E. Slatkin Galleries debuts wool tapestry featuring a Modern version of a classical Greek head.

October 23, 1968

Invited by Chicago dealer Richard Feigen to contribute a work to monthlong protest exhibition Richard J. Daley.

November 1, 1968

Marries Dorothy Herzka.

November 1968

Commissioned to make movie poster for Joanna; it is reproduced in black-and-white newspaper ads but never distributed as a poster.

Designs wrapping paper sold at photographer and filmmaker Bert Stern's store for art objects called On 1st. Paper Plate is also sold at On 1st the following year.

Richard Kalina begins as studio assistant.

December 1968

Richard Dimmler begins as studio assistant.

1969

Begins to use oilboard stencils from Beckley Perforating Co. to apply dot patterns. The sheets are easier to manipulate than metal screens.

Directs painstaking dotting process for Haystack and Rouen Cathedral canvases. Assistants meticulously cut and apply dot stencils to canvas, then apply coats of paint with brayer, sometimes removing and reapplying dots in a different color. Creates first Mirror paintings, inspired by airbrushed quality of mirror sales catalogues.⁵⁹Lichtenstein, R. 1996a,  p. 157

January–July 1969

Issues first serial prints (seven Haystack and six Rouen Cathedral lithographs) through Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles, printed by master printer Kenneth Tyler.

Kalina leaves as studio assistant.

February 3, 1969

Returns to Los Angeles for two-week stay at Universal Studios. Draws ideas for film loops for Three Landscapes.

Summer 1969

Stays on Wooley Street in Southampton again with friends.

Fall 1969

Begins to use his own photographs as source material, including snapshots of magnified mirrors and their reflections.

September 1969

Photographs by Lord Snowdon of Lichtenstein in his Bowery studio with Pyramid paintings and several Modern works appear in Vogue magazine.

September 23, 1969

Buys carriage house at 50 Gin Lane in Southampton but doesn't move in until 1970.

September 19–November 9, 1969

First New York retrospective of paintings and sculptures, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, organized by Diane Waldman. The show travels to four other US museums.

1970

Creates Modern Head, first brass relief, in an edition of 100 for sale by Gemini G.E.L.

Bianchini publishes the first monograph cataloguing most of his drawings and prints.

March 3, 1970

Exhibits sculptures at Galerie Ileana Sonnabend.

March 15–September, 1970

Three Landscapes film is shown at Expo ’70 US Pavilion in Osaka, Japan. Does not travel to Japan to see installation.

Summer 1970

Moves into Southampton house with plans for an added studio on the third floor, but ceilings are constructed three feet lower than expected.⁶⁰Oral history interview with Richard and Suzanne Dimmler by Avis Berman, January 28, 2006, RLF Archives.

October 1970

Large Brushstrokes mural—12 by 245 feet on four continuous walls—completed at University of Düsseldorf.

1971

Designs studio in Southampton across the lawn from the house as a classic saltbox, with skylights. Installs wall easels with wooden racks and clamps.

Works on Entablature series in black and white using his own photographs of neoclassical motifs on New York City buildings as sources. Designs poster for UNICEF child-welfare programs, Save Our Planet Save Our Water, to raise ecological awareness. Lithograph Mao distributed with Frederic Tuten’s The Adventures of Mao on the Long March.

Harry N. Abrams publishes first monograph of paintings and sculpture, written by Diane Waldman. Italian and German editions are also published.

March 13–April 8, 1971

Mirrors exhibited publicly for first time at Leo Castelli.

May 10–August 29, 1971

Three Landscapes is shown in Art and Technology at LACMA. Once again, the artist does not see final installation.

May 12, 1971

Inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Boston).

September 1971

Castelli opens new gallery at 420 W. Broadway in SoHo.

1972

James dePasquale begins as studio assistant in Southampton; Dimmler leaves the position.

John Coplans edits monograph on the artist in Documentary Monographs in Modern Art series.

Begins painting Still Lifes, which will continue as a motif throughout his career. References to Matisse appear in works. Starts to quote own work in these paintings. Increasingly uses diagonals in place of dots.

January 22–February 12, 1972

Exhibits drawings at Leo Castelli Gallery.

April 26, 1972

Exhibits Entablature paintings and drawings at Galerie Ileana Sonnabend.

November 18–December 9, 1972

Exhibits Mirror series prints at Castelli Graphics.

October 1972

Due to his "fascination with the visually banal," serves as visual consultant to Frank Perry’s film Play It as It Lays, based on novel by Joan Didion.⁶¹Paul Gardner, “Perry Making Hollywood Film – His Way,” New York Times, February 10, 1972, p. 59.

1973

Begins series of trompe l’oeil and Cubist still lifes, which include his take on their use of faux-bois. References work of Morris Louis. Creates paintings showing influence of De Stijl and Russian Constructivism. Picasso’s Bulls become a particular theme in graphic work. Also begins Artist’s Studio works, incorporating quotations of his early 1960s work. Later paintings include references to abstract-style paintings, precursors to a group of Perfect/Imperfect works.

February 24–March 10, 1973

Exhibits Still Lifes at Leo Castelli Gallery.

June 23–September 9, 1973

Exhibits Bull Head Series prints at Castelli Graphics.

October 27–November 24, 1973

Exhibits Trompe l'Oeil Paintings at Locksley Shea Gallery, Minneapolis.

1974

Around this time, Carlos Ramos begins as studio assistant.

Paints first works influenced by Italian Futurism. Begins new series of Entablatures using metallic and pastel colors. Mixes sand with paint to highlight surface texture.

May 1974

Interview with Phyllis Tuchman appears in ARTnews. Segal, Warhol, Rosenquist and Indiana are also interviewed.

April 6–June 16, 1974

American Pop Art group exhibition opens at Whitney Museum of American Art, accompanied by catalogue by Lawrence Alloway.

October 7, 1974

Modern Head, the first large-scale sculpture in metal, wood and polyurethane, is assembled on site at Fashion Park, Santa Anita Shopping Center, Arcadia, California.

1975

Works on series of paintings based on works by Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant. Continues exploring Entablatures and Italian Futurism.

Exhibitions 

January 10–February 17, 1975

Centre Beaubourg in Paris organizes first traveling retrospective of drawings.

1976

Completes final series of Entablature paintings. Paints Office Still Lifes based on newspaper illustrations of office items. Creates self-portraits in Futurist style. Makes first painted sculptures in bronze of mirrors, coffee cups and drinking glasses. Works with fabricators who use lost wax casting process. Bronze is patinated black then painted in studio. Produces bicentennial poster for American Revolution Bicentennial Administration.

Warhol creates screenprint portrait of Lichtenstein.

1977

Begins series of paintings based on works by Surrealist artists (including Dalí, Max Ernst and Miró) and Surrealist works by Picasso, some featuring a cropped speech balloon.

Olivia Motch starts as administrative assistant.

January 14–February 14, 1977

Exhibits office Still Lifes at Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago.

February 22–March 20, 1977

Constance W. Glenn curates solo exhibition Roy Lichtenstein: Ceramic Sculptures. Catalogue includes interview with the artist.

March 1977

Commissioned by BMW to create design for their 320i race car, driven later in the year at Le Mans.

April 26, 1977

Receives Medal for Painting from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.

May 13, 1977

Awarded doctorate in fine arts from California Institute of the Arts in Valencia.

June 24–October 2, 1977

Drawings and Surrealist paintings included in Documenta 6, Kassel, Germany.

1978

North American Indian motifs reappear.

January 12, 1978

Creates Airplane, 1977, for American poet Kenneth Koch’s novel-turned-play The Red Robins.

April 1978

Visits Los Angeles. Sees Robert Gore Rifkind collection of German Expressionist graphic art.⁶²"Lichtenstein was inspired by the art and by an intense discussion on printmaking he had with Robert Rifkind; he returned two years later to Gemini G.E.L. with a group of small, colored-pencil sketches which he intended to translate into woodcuts." Barron 1982, p. 64

May 1978

Large-scale outdoor sculpture, Lamp is commissioned by Gilman Paper Company, St. Mary’s, Georgia.

July 19–September 24, 1978

Contributes catalogue cover design for Whitney Museum of American Art’s exhibition Art about Art, organized by Jean Lipman and Richard Marshall.

November 12–26, 1978

Invited by Anand Sarabhai to visit his home in Ahmedabad, India, designed by Le Corbusier for Anand’s mother, Manorama Sarabhai. Makes textile works and paints Mirrors reliefs in sandstone. Prepares teakwood blocks for Goldfish Bowl, Lamp and Picture and Pitcher but is unable to print them because blocks are warped. There are printed in 1981 after staff at Tyler Graphics flattens them.

1979

Makes last Surrealist-inspired works. Begins German Expressionist–inspired works based on paintings and woodcuts. Commissioned by Philip Rosenthal of Rosenthal GmbH, Selb, Germany, to design a tea set, which is completed in late 1984.

March 1979

Outdoor public sculpture commission, Mermaid, installed in Miami.

May 1979

Awarded honorary doctorate in fine arts from Southampton College, New York.

May 23, 1979

Elected to National Institute of Arts and Letters (elevated in 1993 to American Academy of Arts and Sciences, New York).

July 11, 1979

London premiere of BBC profile re-creates Bowery studio, and films the artist at work in Southampton studio.

October 25, 1979

Designs Untitled Shirt using mirror motif in collaboration with the Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, for Artist Space’s sixth-anniversary fundraising party at the Mudd Club, New York.

1980

Makes numerous Expressionist Heads in sculpture and on canvas, along with Expressionist-inspired Nudes in Landscape paintings. Returns to Still Lifes of apples and other fruit with cartoon-style brushstrokes.

Creates American Flag painting, which he later destroys, beginning his exploration with the flag motif to which he will return in 1985.

September 25, 1980

Isabel Wilson Lichtenstein (1921–80) dies.

1981

Paints studies on acetate overlaid on drawings on paper, including some inspired by Willem de Kooning’s Woman series from the late 1950s. Other subjects at this time include sailboats and forest scenes. Continues exploring Woman series in paintings.

May 8–June 28, 1981

Exhibits paintings and sculptures from the period 1970–80 at Saint Louis Art Museum, organized by Jack Cowart; the show travels to museums in the United States, Europe and Japan.

October 4–November 25, 1981

Whitney Museum of American Art’s downtown branch on Wall Street showcases graphic work from the 1970s.

October 17–November 7, 1981

Leo Castelli presents new works, featuring renditions of apples on canvas.

1982

Sets up studio at 105 E. 29th Street, on the seventh floor, between Lexington and Park Avenue, next to the Hotel Deauville.

Begins Two Paintings series in which he combines two framed motifs, often referencing his previous works. References to Johns’s flagstones appear.

January–February, 1982

Travels to Egypt.

March 31, 1982

Participates in roundtable discussion for exhibition Roy Lichtenstein at Colorado State University with art collector John Powers, Peter Jacobs, Carol Adney and Jack Kunin.

June 1982

Submits maquette for tallest sculpture to date, Brushstrokes in Flight, to a national competition sponsored by the City of Columbus, Ohio, for international airport.

August 8–September 19, 1982

Look Mickey, Popeye and Wimpy (Tweet) are exhibited for first time at Parrish Art Museum, Southampton.

1983

Petersburg Press publishes Seven Apples series of woodcuts.

Publication of monograph by Alloway, which includes essay, "Notes on Technique."

March 21, 1983

Poster for UN Special Committee Against Apartheid, published by Galerie Maeght-Lelong in Paris, is exhibited in over 100 locations on the International Day for the Elimination of Race Discrimination.

October 4–December 4, 1983

Contributes design for Next Wave Festival (Brooklyn Academy of Music Poster).

November 1983

On the wall of Castelli’s Greene Street gallery, begins 96-foot-long mural, featuring compilation of many of his motifs, including some from earlier works. The painted and collaged mural is only meant to exist from the time the show opens to the public on December 3 until January 14, 1984, after which it is covered over with sheet rock. The mural is fully destroyed when Castelli closes the gallery space in the fall of 1988. Robert McKeever, who works on Greene Street Mural, eventually becomes studio assistant in New York.

December 1983

Designs logo for Visual Arts Center at Ohio State University (OSU).

1984

Returns to New York from Southampton part-time, to live and work at 105 E. 29th Street. The east wall has a Formica surface on which he can draw or tape items. Big paintings are difficult to fit in elevator. Paints an image of Swiss cheese on elevator doors. Commissioned to create mural for lobby of Equitable Tower in midtown Manhattan.

April 10–May 12, 1984

Retrospective drawing exhibition opens at James Goodman Gallery, New York.

Spring 1984

Joins board of directors of the Studio in a School Association, a not-for-profit organization that brings art experiences and artists to New York City public elementary schools.

September 1984

Commissioned to create large-scale outdoor sculpture for Walker Art Center.

September 20–December 2, 1984

Whitney Museum of American Art presents Blam! The Explosion of Pop, Minimalism, and Performance, organized by Barbara Haskell.

1985

Explores motif of the American flag with dots and diagonals in the painting, Forms in Space. Designs logo for the Hampton Jitney Company for their “Riding the Wave” campaign, launched in late 1985 on a fleet of Setra Intercontinental buses. Works on a group of abstract paintings titled Perfect Painting.

May 31, 1985

Contributes print of the American flag for the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, fundraising event called Rally 'Round the Flag.

November 26, 1985

Media event held celebrating the start of installation for Mural with Blue Brushstroke in lobby of Equitable Tower, Manhattan.

1986

Makes Imperfect paintings, featuring compositions of generic geometric abstractions that feature a single line that tracks from one edge of the canvas to the other, sometimes breaking the boundary of the canvas. Approached by Taittinger to design label for champagne bottle. The bottles are introduced on October 16, 1990, in Paris. Tyler Graphics Ltd. publishes series of hand-painted Brushstroke wall relief sculptures in cherry wood.

January 1986

Mural with Blue Brushstroke completed. References to Léger, Matisse, Stella, Johns, Entablatures and early Pop imagery feature prominently in final design.

February 15, 1986

Salute to Painting, made from painted and fabricated aluminum and standing over 25 feet high, is dedicated at Walker Art Center.

December 1986

Begins work for the first time with Donald Saff, founder of Graphicstudio, located at University of South Florida, Tampa, to publish two versions of Brushstroke Chair and Brushstroke Ottoman, one in white birch veneer crafted by Beeken / Parsons in Shelburne, Vermont, and another in bronze cast at Walla Walla Foundry in Washington state.

1987

February 1987

Begins work at Gemini on seven Imperfect prints in which edges extend over the conventional print border. The prints are published the following year, each in an edition of 45.

February 2–March 5, 1987

Works with Graphicstudio to produce series of waxtype prints featuring Brushstroke Faces that utilize beeswax instead of printer’s ink to create encaustic finish.

March 15–June 2, 1987

MoMA mounts a major drawings retrospective, organized by Bernice Rose, the first show of drawings by a living artist presented by the museum. Show travels to museums in United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Israel.

July 1987

Peter Littmann, Executive Director of Vorwerk & Co. Teppichwerke in Hameln, Germany, commissions design for a wall-to-wall unlimited edition carpet using no more than six colors and measuring four meters in width. Other artists commissioned include Sol LeWitt, Arata Isozaki, David Hockney, Jean Nouvel, Sam Francis, Zaha Hadid, Mimmo Paladino, Michael Graves and Richard Meier.

Summer 1987

Designs the exterior of a mirrored glass labyrinth funhouse for André Heller’s traveling amusement park Luna Luna in Hamburg, with piped-in music by Philip Glass.

November 1987

Visits Israel for first time for opening of drawings show at Tel Aviv Museum. Discusses the possibility of a permanent mural for the museum with director Marc Scheps.

1988

First German-language monograph, devoted to pre-Pop works, by Ernst A. Busche is published.

Begins Reflections series, incorporating quotations of both previously depicted and new comic strips, returning to the use of comic source materials. Comes upon the idea while trying to photograph a Rauschenberg print under glass.¹ Creates sculptures of heads in patinated bronze on themes of the archaic and the surreal and referencing works by Constantin Brancusi. Returns to idea of drawings in black and white. Begins Plus and Minus series based on works by Mondrian.  Sketchbook contains first drawing of a Virtual motif. Commissioned to design poster for the California campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. Sketches curtain design for André Heller’s staging of Body and Soul (1988). His curtain is used as backdrop for the production's tour in the United States and Europe.

Spring 1988

Patricia Koch replaces Olivia Motch as administrative assistant.

April 1988

Coups de pinceau, a 31-foot-high aluminum Brushstroke sculpture, is installed at Caisse des Dépôts in Paris.

May 1988

Sets up studio and residence in 1912 building at 745 Washington Street. A former steel fabricating business, it is renovated by architect David Piscuskas of the firm 1100 Architect. Constructs wooden easel walls around the perimeter. Divides time between Southampton and Manhattan.

June 1988

Receives honorary doctorate in humanities from Ohio State University (OSU).

September 10, 1988

Second shopping bag, produced by Dayton Hudson Department Store Company, celebrates inauguration of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

November 16, 1988–May 31, 1989

Brushstroke Group, a 30-foot-high painted aluminum sculpture, is installed in Central Park’s Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Manhattan as part of the Public Art Fund’s project to install temporary sculptures on public sites in New York.

1989

Continues to explore the Reflections motif, works feature abstractions as well figures such as Wonder Woman, Dagwood and Donald Duck. Tyler Graphics begins work on prints in the series, which are published the following year. Works on colored pencil drawings for his series of Interiors of homes.

Discussions with Gemini about creating a print series of Interiors. One work features a portrait of Mao that references both his early work and Warhol’s. Another features Dagwood Bumstead.

First work in his Mobile series is fabricated by Tallix.

Time magazine reissues his image of Bobby Kennedy and The Gun in America as prints, each in an edition of 2 and given to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., where they join the original drawings and production materials.

March 15–May 15, 1989

Artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. Sees highway sign advertising furniture, which spurs him to look through the Rome yellow pages and collect similar imagery. Begins thinking about doing a series of Interiors based on findings.

April–May, 1989

Travels with studio assistants to Tel Aviv to work on a large mural for the entrance hall of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Summer 1989

Begins work on Bauhaus Stairway Mural for a building designed by I. M. Pei for Creative Artists Agency in Beverly Hills and commissioned by collector and agency founder Michael Ovitz.

June 1989

Commissioned by Metropolitan Transportation Authority of State of New York (MTA) to create Times Square Mural for subway station at 42nd Street and Times Square. After years of delay, the work is installed posthumously in 2002 by Polich ArtWorks for the MTA Arts for Transit program. The sixteen enamel panels feature science fiction themes in futuristic style including image of Buck Rogers.

October 1989

Begins joint project with Philip Glass on hand-cast bronze, copper and wood music box, Modern Love Waltz.

1990

Continues exploring Interiors. According to his assistant Rob McKeever, many include paintings hanging on a wall that the artist wanted to try out but not paint as full-fledged works.⁶⁴Oral history interview with Rob McKeever by Avis Berman, August 29, 2008, RLF Archives.  Paints for the first time with sponges. Designs headdress and stage backdrop for André Heller’s unrealized TV production of Aida. Tallix produces two more Mobiles in painted and patinated bronze as well as Airplane. Artes Magnus in New York publishes porcelain-and-cast-resin Landscape Mobile produced by Bernardaud in Limoges, France. Produces the print Mirror with Gemini for benefit of the Harvey Gantt for Senate Campaign.

January 1990

Commissioned by composer Steve Reich to create cover design for recording called The Four Sections. The cover and accompanying promotional poster are published by Elektra Entertainment, New York, the following year.

Summer 1990

Laurie Lambrecht works as administrative assistant part time, replacing Patricia Koch.

June 1990

Works again with Donald Saff at his new shop, Saff Tech in Oxford, Maryland, to create a faux-relief, Suspended Mobile, and Water Lily prints based on Monet’s late Water Lilies. Creates six Water Lilies with screenprinted enamel that feature a swirling design on metal developed by Saff. Designs individual wood frames for several of them.

September 1990

Cassandra Lozano joins the New York studio full time as administrative assistant, and Lambrecht begins to work in the summers only, until 1992.

October 7, 1990–January 15, 1991

Some comic-book sources are researched and shown for the first time in MoMA’s High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture, an exhibition of twentieth-century art that includes source materials and related ephemera.

1991

Creates ten collage studies for screen prints to be illustrated in Nouvelle Chute de l’Amérique, a limited-edition unbound book published in 1992 by Les Éditions du Solstice to accompany eleven Allen Ginsberg poems under the title The Fall of America. Etchings and aquatints are pulled on a handpress at Atelier Dupont in Visat, Paris. Each edition is signed and numbered by both.

April 2–June 30, 1991

Two Interior paintings are included in Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial.

April 25, 1991

Receives Brandeis University’s Creative Arts Award.

May 15–September 28, 1992

Ed. 1/2 of Modern Head, based on the 1974 wood Modern Head sculpture, installed in Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan. 

October 1991

Creates sculpture based on image of African mask in Interior with African Mask. It is fabricated at Tallix in versions of galvanized steel, tin-plated bronze, zinc-plated bronze and pewter.

1992

Bocour stops producing Magna acrylic paint. Lichtenstein purchases remaining stock and reaches out to Mark Golden at Golden Artist Colors, Inc., to order custom Mineral Spirit Acrylics (MSA) similar in color and working properties to Magna.

Print Rain Forest, initiated by Artists United for Nature, included in portfolio Columbus: In Search of a New Tomorrow to raise awareness and funds to protect the world’s tropical rainforests. It features his sponging technique.

June 1992

Approached by dealer Ronald Feldman to help fund-raise on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic senatorial campaigns. Creates print of the Oval Office to benefit ten female senatorial candidates. A poster is also created.

June 12, 1992

Made Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic.

July 1992

Commissioned to create a sculpture for the city of Barcelona, Spain, on the occasion of the summer Olympics. Inspired by the work of Catalan artist Antoni Gaudí, creates Barcelona Head, a 64-foot-high sculpture covered with colored ceramic tiles.

Creates an interior inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s bedroom paintings.

December 6, 1992–March 7, 1993

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, presents Hand-Painted Pop: American Art in Transition, 1955–62, organized by Paul Schimmel and Donna DeSalvo, devoted exclusively to early years of the Pop art movement in the United States. Pre-1960s works such as Washington Crossing the Delaware I, and several semiabstract drawings of cartoon characters from 1958 are included. Show travels to two other US museums.

1993

January 1993

Painting Oval Office is finished.

April 1993

Begins work with Saff Tech on painted nickel-plated bronze Metallic Brushstroke Head.

May 1993

Produces cover and frontispiece for Tuten’s book, Tintin in the New World: A Romance (William Morrow), which features Tintin, a character created by Belgian artist Hergé.

July 9, 1993

Receives honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art, London.

July–August, 1993

Creates Large Interior with Three Reflections, commissioned site-specific mural consisting of a 30-foot-long panel and three additional panels.

October 1993

Completes Brushstroke Nude, a 12-foot-high painted aluminum sculpture fabricated at Tallix.

October 7, 1993–January 16, 1994

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, survey of paintings and sculpture. Designs cover for museum’s magazine. Exhibition travels to Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Museé des beaux-arts, Montreal. Pre-Pop works are added at the Haus der Kunst, Munich; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; and Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Tour concludes with a smaller exhibition at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio.

October 23–November 27, 1993

Premiers Tintin painting at Leo Castelli.

December 23, 1993

Receives Amici de Barcelona award from Mayor of Barcelona, Pasqual Maragall.

1994

Using machined aluminum, paint and wax, Saff Tech begins fabricating his relief Woman Contemplating a Yellow Cup. Later in year, they begin production on Imperfect Sculpture using stained cast iron and painted stainless steel plates. Paints works featuring comic-book females in the nude inspired by Picasso’s 1928 beach series.

January 1994

Roy Lichtenstein: The Artist at Work (Lodestar) by Lou Ann Walker is published. Designed to teach children eight to twelve years old about art, it includes photos by Michael Abramson of the artist at work in his studio.

February 1994

Meets with Kenneth Tyler at his shop to begin work on Nude prints.

August 1994

Commissioned to design hull and sail for Mermaid Sailboat, a PACT 95 yacht.

October 1994

The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné by Mary Lee Corlett is published. The book appears in conjunction with the prints retrospective at the National Gallery of Art, organized by Ruth Fine. Show later travels to LACMA, Dallas Museum of Art and Parrish Art Museum.

November 19–December 17, 1994

First series of Nudes is shown at Leo Castelli.

1995

Continues to create Interiors, beginning a group of Virtual Interiors, which feature colored, instead of black-only, outlining. Walt Disney Company publishes Virtual Interior: Portrait of a Duck to benefit several children’s charities. It is first collaboration with printing house Noblet Serigraphie, Inc., New York. Begins large series of Song Dynasty–inspired mountain views, which have been referred to as Landscapes in the Chinese Style. Benday dots in graduated sizes simulate atmospheric effects. Creates self-portrait, entitled Coup de Chapeau (Self-Portrait).

January 1995–March 1996

Works with Gemini on prints showcasing variety of images including venetian blinds, musical scales and Chinese Style Landscapes.

March 31, 1995

New York Times publishes "Disciple of Color and Line, Master of Irony," an interview conducted by chief staff art critic Michael Kimmelman on the artist’s favorite pieces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

June 8, 1995

Donates Composition III, based on motif of musical notes, to the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies; 175 impressions hang in US embassies.

October 1995

Selected by Capuchin monks to create mural for Chapel of the Eucharist in the Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church in San Giovanni Rotondo, Apulia, Italy. The church is designed by Renzo Piano, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper,  Lichtenstein sends Piano a drawing, but the mural is never executed due to Lichtenstein's unexpected death.

October 5, 1995

Receives National Medal of Arts at a gala ceremony in Washington, D.C., presented by President Clinton.

November 1995

Brushstroke Still Life with Lamp print on honey-comb core aluminum is started at Saff Tech. It, along with three others, features hand-painted brushstrokes; only one of the four prints is completed by the artist before his death.

November 10, 1995

Receives Kyoto Prize from Inamori Foundation, Kyoto, Japan. Travels to accept award and deliver lecture on his work.

1996

Fabrication of large-scale six-piece outdoor sculpture, Singapore Brushstrokes and Landscape, completed this year. Commissioned by the Pontiac Land Group, Singapore, it was installed at Millenia, a downtown development, in Summer 1997. Works on maquettes of sculptures of a Pyramid and several Houses that rely on inverted angles to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. Approached by NARAL to design a pro-choice button, which did not go into production.

May 1996

Creates model for an un realized hologram of a domestic interior commissioned by the C-Project based in Miami Beach.

May 19, 1996

Awarded honorary doctorate in fine arts from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

August 1996

Designs logo for DreamWorks Records.

September 28–October 26, 1996

Roy Lichtenstein: Landscapes in the Chinese Style presented at Leo Castelli Gallery.

December 1996

Donates 154 of his prints and two books spanning his career to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., making it the largest repository of his prints.

1997

Continues to explore Interiors that include motifs from his earlier works, featuring still lifes and female figures. Works on a number of prints, including Cubist Cello, which features references to Marc Chagall, and one for Leo Castelli’s 90th Birthday Portfolio. Makes drawings after Cézanne’s Bathers.

April 9, 1997

Named an honorary fellow to Tel Aviv Museum, Israel.

April 30, 1997

Interviewed by David Sylvester is one of the last given by the artist.

June 1997

Travels to Saff and Company workshop to add hand-painted strokes to Brushstroke Still Life with Lamp. This is the only one of the three prints completed before the artist's death.

June 15–November 9, 1997

The 47th Venice Biennale opens. House II, a large-scale fiberglass sculpture of a house exterior, is shown at Italian Pavilion in exhibition Future, Present, and Past, curated by Biennale Artistic Director Germano Celant.

September 5–October 7, 1997

Galerie Lawrence Rubin in Zurich presents exhibition of new Interior paintings. Sylvester’s April interview is published in the catalogue.

September 29, 1997

Dies unexpectedly at New York University Medical Center in Manhattan from complications due to pneumonia.