American artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923–97) used flat vivid colors and Ben Day dots to challenge artistic norms as a founder of the Pop Art movement. He questioned the boundaries between high and low culture, creating art that was both critical and celebratory of mass production. His reinterpretations of comic strips and advertisements engage with the American experience of postwar consumerism and the visual language of modernity, revealing the emotional depth hidden within commercial imagery. 

Lichtenstein was born in New York City and studied with Reginald Marsh at the Art Students League of New York before enrolling, in 1940, as an undergraduate student at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He was drafted into the United States Army in 1943 and served in Europe in 1945. In the spring of 1946, he returned to Ohio State University to complete his bachelor of fine arts degree. He taught at the University from 1946 until 1951 and received a masters degree in 1949. In 1961, Lichtenstein’s breakthrough painting, Look Mickey, announced his Pop Art style. His first solo exhibition came the following year and was a commercial success. Lichtenstein appealed internationally, too, becoming the first American to exhibit at London’s Tate Gallery in 1966. In the late 1960s, he shifted from mimicking comic strips and advertisements to imitating Picasso, Cézanne, and Mondrian. He also experimented with sculpture and painted landscapes, nudes, and giant murals. His practice, grounded in a playful yet intellectual approach to the imagery of everyday life, has influenced generations of artists and continues to shape the dialogue between fine art and popular culture today.

Lichtenstein’s work can be found in major public collections around the world, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; Tate Modern, London, England; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. 

He was first presented by GRAY in 1977, and has appeared in several of the gallery’s shows since, including Eight New Paintings, 1984; Landscapes, 1986; Modern and Contemporary Masters, 1992; Waterlilies, 1992; Prints, 1994; New Drawings, Collages, Paintings & Sculpture, 1997; Modern Paintings, 2010; Muse Exploring Inspiration, 2012; and GRAY at 60, 2023.