Lot Essay
In the mid-1970s, Roy Lichtenstein began to explore the classic theme of still life in his paintings. With the notable exception of Black Flowers in 1961, which was an appropriated image from an advertisement in the newspaper of a flower arrangement, Lichtenstein had never really painted a still life. He had done single appropriated images--a slice of cherry pie, a hot dog--against backgrounds of a solid color or a field of Benday dots. While these could be called still lifes, their real subject was the product, something well-known to the consumer society through television or print advertising.
With his typical inventiveness and energy, the still life paintings that Lichtenstein created in the 1970s explored a whole range of new subjects--from traditional still lifes of arrangements of fruit or flowers, to studio interiors (which often included paintings of his own in the composition, as Matisse had done throughout his career), to the Office Interiors of 1976, which he composed using images taken from commercial catalogues.
'He appropriated images of the most commonplace storage cabinets, file drawers, desks and chairs to create a small group of paintings...like the Entablatures (1971-1976), they are spare compositions, combining a few rectangular forms with equally few colors. New to the work, however, is an unusual palette of neutral grays and blues, colors that Lichtenstein chose for these works because he felt that they would recall the most ordinary office furniture and equipment. He used graphite borders and dense blue pigment to recall the hues of pencils and ballpoint ink. While the paintings have an austerity about them that is perhaps an offshoot of the preceeding series of Purist still lifes done in 1975, they are becomingly unassuming. In these paintings, Lichtenstein again dispenses with Benday dots, using diagonal stripes instead. Many of this series' images, as well as some of its most distinctive stylistic features, reappear in the series entitled Two Paintings of 1983, and in the series of large-scale Interiors begun in 1991' (D. Waldman, Roy Lichtenstein, New York 1993, p. 231).
With his typical inventiveness and energy, the still life paintings that Lichtenstein created in the 1970s explored a whole range of new subjects--from traditional still lifes of arrangements of fruit or flowers, to studio interiors (which often included paintings of his own in the composition, as Matisse had done throughout his career), to the Office Interiors of 1976, which he composed using images taken from commercial catalogues.
'He appropriated images of the most commonplace storage cabinets, file drawers, desks and chairs to create a small group of paintings...like the Entablatures (1971-1976), they are spare compositions, combining a few rectangular forms with equally few colors. New to the work, however, is an unusual palette of neutral grays and blues, colors that Lichtenstein chose for these works because he felt that they would recall the most ordinary office furniture and equipment. He used graphite borders and dense blue pigment to recall the hues of pencils and ballpoint ink. While the paintings have an austerity about them that is perhaps an offshoot of the preceeding series of Purist still lifes done in 1975, they are becomingly unassuming. In these paintings, Lichtenstein again dispenses with Benday dots, using diagonal stripes instead. Many of this series' images, as well as some of its most distinctive stylistic features, reappear in the series entitled Two Paintings of 1983, and in the series of large-scale Interiors begun in 1991' (D. Waldman, Roy Lichtenstein, New York 1993, p. 231).