Reference Material

Lichtenstein created and gathered various types of reference material, including cartoon and magazine clippings—stored loose or pasted into notebooks—and photographs he took of works in progress in his studio and of New York City architecture. The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation gifted most of these materials to the Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The catalogue raisonné team is currently reviewing, organizing and cataloguing items from the vast collection to be published on this website.

Guide to Entries: Notebooks

Eight extant notebooks document Lichtenstein’s practice of collecting reference material. These ruled Composition books and small pads hold clippings from newspapers, comic books, magazines and various printed matter dated as early as 1939. At times, the artist also used the books for keeping notes or to sketch an idea inspired by a clipping.

Between 1999 and 2023, RLF staff inventoried and numbered the notebooks and their pages, but not the individual items pasted into them. From 2023 to 2026, the RLCR team reviewed and classified each item and, in a second step, determined close connections between clippings and Lichtenstein’s works. The result of this research was published as a study resource with the online catalogue raisonné in October 2026. Ongoing research may lead to future reference connections.

In addition to pasting printed matter into notebooks, Lichtenstein also stored many of these reference items loosely. The RLCR team is still in the process of cataloguing them.

One extant blank notebook, labeled “BATHERS,” held an envelope with reference material; it is illustrated in the artwork entry RLCR 4347.

Organization of Entries

Umbrella entries describe a notebook as a whole.

Notebook pages are documented in the sequence in which they appear in the book.

Drawings on a notebook page are catalogued in full as "drawing (in notebook)."

At times, pages or components of pages were cut from a notebook and either stored in it or kept separately. When the authors were able to determine the page from which they were cut, the loose materials are presented alongside their source pages. If a loose sheet is catalogued as an artwork, a remark in that entry lists the notebook from which it originated.

Loose clippings found in REF NB1 and REF NB3 are included after the book’s pages.

Provenance is added to loose components when in a different collection than the notebook, e.g., REF NB1: Page 44LL.

Titles

Notebook titles reflect the notebook manufacturer when known. Otherwise, titles follow printed text on the cover. Titles of the artist’s drawings in the books follow the usual RLCR style.

Dates

Dates reflect those of the drawings found in the notebook. Research into publication dates of the pasted clippings from newspapers and comic books is ongoing.

Dimensions

Binding and leaf dimensions are provided. Cutout dimensions are provided in page entries when cutouts have been matched to loose components.

Clipping dimensions are provided if the clipping has been identified as a reference for an artwork, e.g., REF PM-047.NB on REF NB1: Page 15.

Numbers: Notebooks, Pages, Clippings

In 2026, all notebooks were assigned new numbers by the RLCR team using the books’ titles in alphabetical order: REF NB1 to REF NB8.

Page numbers were assigned to the pages remaining in the book but not to the stubs of removed pages. (Entries REF NB5: Former Page unkn1r and REF NB5: Former Page unkn1v document a loose sheet the authors matched to the unpaginated stub in the notebook.)

Clipping numbers are given prefixes to indicate where they originated (identified or unidentified comic book; various other printed matter). Suffixes indicate how a clipping was stored or found (pasted into a notebook or slipped into it) and, in rare cases, that it is a photocopy.

Prefixes in clipping numbers indicate the following:

REF CB [comic book issue number] [page number in issue]
A clipping originates from an identified comic book. The prefix is followed by the number of the comic book issue, then a number in the order in which it appears in that issue, e.g. REF CB01.01

REF CB-unkn[numeral]
The comic book source of a clipping is unknown. Clippings are numbered “REF CB-unkn,” then assigned a numeral in the order in which they appear in the notebook they were pasted into.

REF PM-[numeral]
Clipping originates from printed matter other than comic books. The prefix is followed by a numeral according to the order in which clippings appear in a notebook. Clippings found loose in notebooks are given “PM-” numbers that follow the last numbered clipping in the book.

Suffixes in clipping numbers indicate the following:

NB: Notebook
The clipping was pasted into one of the artist’s notebooks rather than stored loosely (see Various Printed Matter)

LL: Loose Leaf
Indicates loose pages and cut components of pages, numbered according to their original location in the book, e.g., REF NB1: Page 35rLL (a full sheet), REF NB2: Page 12rLL (a partial sheet).

PC: Photocopy
A photocopy made by previous RLF staff in the RLF Archives. Photocopies are mostly only illustrated in the absence of any extant clippings.

Alternate numbers

Alternate numbers are listed in brackets alphabetically. These combine all numbers previously associated by RLF staff with an image in a clipping, whether in a pasted, loose, photocopied or digitally prepared clipping.

RL and RLCR
Assigned by RLF staff during an early inventory and later for the first illustration of the books in the online catalogue raisonné (October 2023– October 2026)

SRC
Assigned by RLF staff to various types of source material. At times, numbers were likely erroneously skipped during assignment. For notebooks, numbers were assigned to whole pages; those numbers appear as alternate numbers in the related artwork entries for drawings on a page, e.g., RLCR 1923.2.

RLFA
Assigned by RLF staff to RLF Archives holdings. Each discrete object in the holdings, such as individual copies of the same comic book issue and individual clippings, received its own RLFA number.

Absence of any alternate number indicates newly researched material by the RLCR team.

Drawn-on Clippings

At times, Lichtenstein drew directly on a clipping in a notebook. Those items are considered artworks and are hyperlinked and fully documented in the catalogue raisonné as “drawing (on print).” The clipping itself was also assigned a number per its location in a notebook; this number is given as an alternate number in the artwork entry.

Illustrations of Clippings

When multiple clippings of the same image are extant (pasted in a notebook and loose in the RLF Archives), a single clipping entry illustrates first the item in the notebook, then the loose item. Any photocopies of extant clippings in the RLF Archives are mostly only indicated via their alternate SRC or RLFA numbers.

In the past, newspaper and magazine advertisements were printed at times from plates made after “re-drawn” stock motifs resulting in subtle differences in line, shape and color. When clippings with such image variants are found in notebooks, they are catalogued separately, e.g., REF PM-070.NB on REF NB1: Page 33 and REF PM-118.NB on REF NB1: Page 44. However, a loose clipping of this kind is added to the pasted notebook clipping entry of the same motif and shown as a secondary image, e.g., REF PM-012.NB on REF NB1: Page 3.

Related Artworks

When the authors determined a clipping is a reference for Lichtenstein’s artworks, those artwork entries are hyperlinked to the clipping as well as the notebook page onto which the clipping was pasted. Artworks and related clippings can be viewed side-by-side, including in relative size, from the artwork entry by scrolling down to “Reference Material” and then clicking on “Compare with Artwork.”

View in Comic Book

Clippings in notebooks that originate from comic books are hyperlinked to the related book under “View in Comic Book.”