Girl with Hair Ribbon

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) is one of the leading figures of American Pop Art. After classical training at the Beaux-Arts and a brief academic career, he exploded onto the art scene in the early 1960s with canvases inspired by advertising, comic strips and popular culture. His style is immediately recognizable: systematic use of the Benday grid, primary colors and ironic treatment of popular images. Lichtenstein seeks to question the boundary between "noble art" and mass culture, blurring the traditional hierarchies of art history. Throughout his career, he also worked on other classical genres (nudes, landscapes, still lifes), which he hijacked with the same graphic treatment, creating a body of work that was both coherent and critical. Roy Lichtenstein has had major exhibitions throughout his career, including two major retrospectives at the Guggenheim in 1969 and 1993, and one at the Centre Pompidou in 2013.