Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was an American artist who became a leading figure of Pop Art by borrowing the look of comic strips. Born in New York in 1923, he took the cheap printing style of comics, the bold outlines, the flat primary colors, the little dots used to shade cheap newsprint, and blew it up into large, deadpan paintings. A crying woman or a fighter jet firing a missile would fill the canvas, complete with a caption or a sound effect.

By copying commercial art so exactly, he raised sharp questions about originality, taste, and what counts as fine art. Some critics dismissed the work as a cynical copy, while others saw a clever comment on a mass-produced culture. Alongside Andy Warhol, Lichtenstein helped define Pop Art, and his dotted, cartoon style is now instantly recognizable.