Re-Connecting the Dots on Roy Lichtenstein

Once Roy Lichtenstein started painting Ben-Day dots in 1961, could he ever stop? After a tour of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, exhibition Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, you would probably answer no. The more important question is “Why?” The first major exhibition since Lichtenstein’s death in 1997, the show includes all of Lichtenstein’s greatest paintings—which sometimes feel like variations on one single greatest hit—as well as drawings and sculptures related to those icons of pop art. Is this a retrospective of a great artist or a recollecting of a good artist who hit on one great idea over and over, whether willing to do so or not? Fifteen years after Lichtenstein’s passing, it’s finally time to re-connect the dots and see what total portrait they create. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Re-Connecting the Dots on Roy Lichtenstein."

[Image: Roy Lichtenstein. Whaam!, 1963. Oil and Magna on canvas. Overall: 172.7 x 421.6 cm (68 x 166 in.), two panels. Tate, London, Purchased 1966. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.]

[Many thanks to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, for providing me with the image above and other press materials related to the exhibition Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, which runs through January 13, 2013.]