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Lot Essay
Roy Lichtenstein’s Mirror #5 (24”) stands as a quietly radical work within the artist’s celebrated oeuvre. Painted in 1970, it belongs to a body of work that explores perception, representation, and the limits of visual language. Executed between 1969 and 1972, the Mirror paintings utilize Lichtenstein’s signature use of Ben-Day dots, but often in ways that are intriguingly opaque, abstract, and open-ended. The present work is a pivotal example in this regard, as it pushes the Ben-Day dots all the way to the canvas’s edge, leaving us with a yellow, nearly solid expanse like the sun. Emerging as one of Lichtenstein’s most innovative and mysterious paintings, Mirror #5 is a wordless, intimate, and abstract standout from a expansive and influential oeuvre of more than forty years.
At first glance, the work appears almost minimal as a radiant yellow field dominates the circular surface, punctuated only at the margins by Lichtenstein’s famous Ben-Day dots that suggest reflection. However, this apparent simplicity belies a sophisticated interrogation of what a “mirror” can be in painting. In contrast to traditional depictions of mirrors in art history, which reflect figures and space, Lichtenstein’s mirror seems to reflect nothing. Instead, the present work appears to represent a coded image of reflection, one built from the visual conventions of commercial illustration. Mirror #5 magnifies this paradox as it is both a mirror and an absence, the present work appears then as an object that invites looking while refusing to return the viewer’s gaze. As described in a review of Roy Lichtenstein: Mirror Paintings in 1989, where Mirror #5 was exhibited, critic Catherine Liu writes: “These mirrors do not offer easy narcissistic gratification, allegorical meanings, or narrative logic… Lichtenstein as an artist refuses to comment on this emptiness; like Warhol, he absorbs it and reproduces it with a kind of vacant intensity whose beauty has not faded in the twenty years or so since these images were first produced” (C. Liu, “Roy Lichtenstein at Mary Boone Gallery,” Artforum, January 1990).
The Mirror series originated in Lichtenstein’s walks past the windows of stores that sold glass panels on the Bowery in New York City’s Lower East Side. Inspired by the streets and shops of the city instead of comic strips of his early career, the Mirror series is an abstract record of Lichtenstein’s movement throughout New York City. He was enthralled by the shops’ brochures, which, according to the artist, depicted mirrors as “air-brushed mirror symbols, reflecting nothing” (quoted in C. Lanchner, ex. cat., Roy Lichtenstein, New York, 2009, p. 26). Indeed, Mirror #5 is not a mirror in the strictest sense, because it does not reflect us, but instead the viewer melds with the canvas and pigment.
Air-brushed mirror symbols, reflecting nothin.
Roy Lichtenstein
Mirror #5 therefore combines the sublime and the playful. The yellow hue pushes the Ben-Day dots to the canvas’s limits, allowing the viewer some room to find himself within it. We can also see in Mirror #5 the earlier art historical traditional representations of mirrors and reflections in Renaissance and Baroque art. Representative is Caravaggio’s Narcissus, as with Lichtenstein’s work, suggests that art is not so much a means of looking outward at the world, but rather inward at ourselves and the images we consume.
Initially gifted by the artist to his son Mitchell Lichtenstein in 1970, Mirror #5 later passed through prominent collections. Most notably, it was a part of the private collection of Agnes Gund, a distinguished collector and philanthropist, who has long been recognized for her commitment to supporting artists and advancing social causes through art. The inclusion of Mirror #5 in her collection situates the work within a lineage of discerning patronage, reflecting both its aesthetic significance and its resonance within broader cultural dialogues.
Ultimately, Mirror #5 encapsulates a central paradox of Lichtenstein’s art, its simultaneous engagement with and detachment from the visual world. By presenting a mirror as such, the artist compels us to confront the mechanisms of representation and the conventions that shape our perception. The painting becomes less an object to be viewed but more a radiant yellow field in which the act of looking itself is called into question.
At first glance, the work appears almost minimal as a radiant yellow field dominates the circular surface, punctuated only at the margins by Lichtenstein’s famous Ben-Day dots that suggest reflection. However, this apparent simplicity belies a sophisticated interrogation of what a “mirror” can be in painting. In contrast to traditional depictions of mirrors in art history, which reflect figures and space, Lichtenstein’s mirror seems to reflect nothing. Instead, the present work appears to represent a coded image of reflection, one built from the visual conventions of commercial illustration. Mirror #5 magnifies this paradox as it is both a mirror and an absence, the present work appears then as an object that invites looking while refusing to return the viewer’s gaze. As described in a review of Roy Lichtenstein: Mirror Paintings in 1989, where Mirror #5 was exhibited, critic Catherine Liu writes: “These mirrors do not offer easy narcissistic gratification, allegorical meanings, or narrative logic… Lichtenstein as an artist refuses to comment on this emptiness; like Warhol, he absorbs it and reproduces it with a kind of vacant intensity whose beauty has not faded in the twenty years or so since these images were first produced” (C. Liu, “Roy Lichtenstein at Mary Boone Gallery,” Artforum, January 1990).
The Mirror series originated in Lichtenstein’s walks past the windows of stores that sold glass panels on the Bowery in New York City’s Lower East Side. Inspired by the streets and shops of the city instead of comic strips of his early career, the Mirror series is an abstract record of Lichtenstein’s movement throughout New York City. He was enthralled by the shops’ brochures, which, according to the artist, depicted mirrors as “air-brushed mirror symbols, reflecting nothing” (quoted in C. Lanchner, ex. cat., Roy Lichtenstein, New York, 2009, p. 26). Indeed, Mirror #5 is not a mirror in the strictest sense, because it does not reflect us, but instead the viewer melds with the canvas and pigment.
Air-brushed mirror symbols, reflecting nothin.
Roy Lichtenstein
Mirror #5 therefore combines the sublime and the playful. The yellow hue pushes the Ben-Day dots to the canvas’s limits, allowing the viewer some room to find himself within it. We can also see in Mirror #5 the earlier art historical traditional representations of mirrors and reflections in Renaissance and Baroque art. Representative is Caravaggio’s Narcissus, as with Lichtenstein’s work, suggests that art is not so much a means of looking outward at the world, but rather inward at ourselves and the images we consume.
Initially gifted by the artist to his son Mitchell Lichtenstein in 1970, Mirror #5 later passed through prominent collections. Most notably, it was a part of the private collection of Agnes Gund, a distinguished collector and philanthropist, who has long been recognized for her commitment to supporting artists and advancing social causes through art. The inclusion of Mirror #5 in her collection situates the work within a lineage of discerning patronage, reflecting both its aesthetic significance and its resonance within broader cultural dialogues.
Ultimately, Mirror #5 encapsulates a central paradox of Lichtenstein’s art, its simultaneous engagement with and detachment from the visual world. By presenting a mirror as such, the artist compels us to confront the mechanisms of representation and the conventions that shape our perception. The painting becomes less an object to be viewed but more a radiant yellow field in which the act of looking itself is called into question.