Lot Essay
By 1962 several young artists in New York were using discredited media images--from advertising, comic books, billboards, and television--as sources for their art. When Roy Lichtenstein had his first solo exhibition of comic book paintings at Leo Castelli Gallery that year, he was joined forever in the eyes of the public with the other so-called Pop artists--Oldenburg, Warhol, Rosenquist, Wesselman, Segal--a group whose impact is still being felt today. "In the notorious marriage of a wholly radical subject matter with the methods of fine art, Roy Lichtenstein brought to a level of consciousness, both visual and intellectual, an awareness of the American life style and brilliantly proclaimed the comic strip as a fitting theme for the new American painting of the 1960's" (D. Waldman, Roy Lichtenstein, New York 1969, p. 12). Just as Warhol used images appropriated from fan magazines and movie publicity stills to create his iconic images of American Pop culture of the 60's--Marilyn, Elvis, Liz--so too did Lichtenstein create "stereotypes of our culture--a Hollywood sunset, a crying girl, an embracing couple" (ibid., p. 16) from the lowly comic book.
Kiss II shows that Lichtenstein is a master at choosing his subject to convey the maximum impact. He isolates the most climatic moment, zooming in, cropping and editing the image to draw the viewer into the picture emotionally. But the emotions portrayed in the scene are in marked contrast to the legendary coolness of his painting technique. The comic book not only provided subjects for Lichtenstein to paint, but they gave him stylistic cues as well: large areas of flat color; black outlines to define the figures; benday dots to depict the modulated surfaces of skin. The cool technique was a trait of the Pop artists--the absolute negation of their immediate artistic forebears, the Abstract Expressionists.
Kiss II is a magnificent example of Lichtenstein's early comic book style. His refinement of all of the "fine art" elements of the picture--sensuous line, strong composition, bold flat areas of color--give this representational painting all of the impact of a contemporary abstraction. What appears to be a simple quotation of a commercial comic artist's work has become, through Lichtenstein's masterful intervention, the equivalent in artistic terms of Picasso or Matisse--refined, precise, and bold.
Kiss II shows that Lichtenstein is a master at choosing his subject to convey the maximum impact. He isolates the most climatic moment, zooming in, cropping and editing the image to draw the viewer into the picture emotionally. But the emotions portrayed in the scene are in marked contrast to the legendary coolness of his painting technique. The comic book not only provided subjects for Lichtenstein to paint, but they gave him stylistic cues as well: large areas of flat color; black outlines to define the figures; benday dots to depict the modulated surfaces of skin. The cool technique was a trait of the Pop artists--the absolute negation of their immediate artistic forebears, the Abstract Expressionists.
Kiss II is a magnificent example of Lichtenstein's early comic book style. His refinement of all of the "fine art" elements of the picture--sensuous line, strong composition, bold flat areas of color--give this representational painting all of the impact of a contemporary abstraction. What appears to be a simple quotation of a commercial comic artist's work has become, through Lichtenstein's masterful intervention, the equivalent in artistic terms of Picasso or Matisse--refined, precise, and bold.