Roy Lichtenstein

Born in 1923 in New York. In 1939-40, Roy Lichtenstein studied under Reginald Marsh at the Art Students' League, New York, and 1940-43 and 1946-49 at Ohio State University, Columbus, where he completed his studies with an M.A. Between these two periods of study he did his military service in Europe. Between 1949 and 1951 he taught at Ohio State University.

In 1951 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Carlebach Gallery, New York. Until 1957 he worked as a commercial artist and designer and did display work for shop windows. His paintings and drawings at this time were parodies of American "twenties' art, e.g. Remington's cowboy-and-Indian scenes.

From 1957 to 1960 he taught at New York State University, Oswego, New York. His work passed through a non-representational, Abstract-Expressionist phase. In 1960 he became acquainted with Allan Kaprow and Claes Oldenburg and began to use typical elements of commercial art, comics and advertisements in his drawings and painting.

From 1960 to 1963 he taught at Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Jersey. In 1965, he had a one-man exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. In 1963 he moved to New York. He was commissioned by the architect Philip Johnson to produce large format paintings for the New York State Pavilion at the World's Fair in New York and had his first one-man exhibition in Europe at the Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris. He was given his first American retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Cleveland.

He was represented at the Venice Biennale in 1966, 1968 and 1970. In 1967-68 he had a retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum, and also exhibited at Minneapolis, Amsterdam, London, Berne and Hanover. He was represented at the documenta "4" and "5" Kassel, in 1968 and 1972 respectively. In 1969 he was given a retrospective at the Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

He had a retrospective of his drawings in 1975 at the Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Paris, also shown at Berlin. In 1979 he received his first public commission for a sculpture. He made the Mermaid for the Theater of the Performing Arts, Miami Beach, Florida. He painted the series American Indians. In 1981 the St. Louis Art Museum organized a comprehensive retrospective of his work which toured the USA, Europe and Japan. In 1982 he rented a loft in New York in addition to his studio in Southampton. In 1985 he produced a mural for the Equitable Center, New York. In 1987 he had a retrospective of his drawings at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and at the Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 1988.

He died of pneumonia in 1997.