Roy Lichtenstein - Kiss V - offset lithograph - licensed print 2004

Offset lithography by Roy Lichtenstein (*)
Reproduction of the work “Kiss V”, work created by Roy Lichtenstein in 1964.
Luxurious edition on coated graphics paper (250 g/m²)
Authorized print by the Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

- Sheet dimensions: 28 x 36 cm
- Image dimensions: 20 x 20 cm
- Year: 2004
- Condition: Excellent (this work has never been framed or exhibited, always kept in a professional art folder, therefore offered in perfect condition).
- Provenance: Private collection.

The work will be carefully handled and packaged in reinforced cardboard packaging. The shipment will be certified with a tracking number.

The shipment will also include transport insurance for the final value of the work with full reimbursement in case of loss or damage, at no cost to the buyer.

(*) The painter and sculptor who looted the comic to turn it into museum material.
Roy Lichtenstein was one of the key figures of American Pop, and as such drew inspiration for his work from popular art: advertising, magazines, comics…; as well as from the history of traditional art: Art Deco, cubism, abstract expressionism (in which he militantly participated at the start of his career)…
Lichtenstein’s work is characterized by irony (it is something Pop artists boasted about, sometimes disguised as snobbery or superficiality…), the use of Ben-Day dots (used in graphic arts) and industrial colors, the language of comics (onomatopoeias, panels, narrative) and the mastery of line.
Lichtenstein began in the fashionable abstract expressionism, but soon joined the rest of the Pop guerrilla to rebel against the abstract and use figurative art. Moreover, figurative art that is more popular and mechanical is better.
Of course there was nothing more popular and mechanical than a comic in 1958, so Lichtenstein decided he would create commercially produced images.
That said… he reproduces by hand what seems to have been done by a machine.
Those images were faithful portraits of consumer society and mass culture, which can be either a critique of the contemporary world, an idealization or a satire of Western capitalist society.
That ambiguity between critique and admiration, between mockery and respect, is typical of pop art, which cynically plays at a masquerade.
Born in New York, Lichtenstein lived in this city, the capital of everything that represents pop, and in it he would die at 73, celebrated as an artist who sold paintings for more than 40 million euros.