Reference Material

Lichtenstein gathered, created and used various types of reference materials. They comprise cartoon and magazine clippings—stored loose or pasted into notebooks—and photographs the artist took on walks through New York City or as part of his studio practice. Most of this material is still held by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Archives, will soon be digitized, and has been gifted to the Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 

The catalogue raisonné team has started a review of the large number of these materials and is in the process of adding them to this website. For example, there are between hundreds and thousands of comic, magazine, newspaper and book clipping references.                 

Notebooks

Lichtenstein's notebooks are ruled Composition books and small pads that mostly hold a selection of clippings from newspapers and comic books collected by the artist over the years. The seven books illustrated below are included in the catalogue raisonné, because the artist drew in them. RLF staff had titled and assigned source (SCR) numbers to inventoried Notebooks; the catalogue team edited titles slightly for consistency purposes. 

As of 2023, notebooks are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Collection and RLF Archives.