Crak (section)

A determined woman in a red beret grips a rifle and calls out "Now, mes petits... pour la France!" in this slice of Roy Lichtenstein's Crak! from 1963. The whole piece looks like a page torn straight from a comic book and made giant, complete with thick black outlines, punchy yellows and reds, and those little printed dots scattered across the surface. Those dots have a name, Ben-Day dots, a cheap printing trick used in newspapers and comics that Lichtenstein turned into his personal calling card.

As one of the driving voices of Pop Art, Lichtenstein delighted in pulling ordinary images like ads and comic strips into the serious world of galleries. Plenty of people scratched their heads at the idea, wondering why anyone would copy a comic and hang it on a museum wall. That reaction was exactly what he was after. By blowing up a corny war scene, he pushed people to actually study the kind of picture they would normally flip right past. The dramatic French rallying cry adds a wink of humor, gently teasing the puffed-up heroics that filled the comics he grew up loving.