Woman in Bath

A cheerful woman soaks in a tub of bubbles, holding a foamy sponge while wisps of steam rise behind her. Roy Lichtenstein painted this scene in 1963, and it shows off everything people recognize in his work: heavy black outlines, a small handful of colors, and those little dots that fill in her skin and the water. Called Ben-Day dots, they came from a cheap printing method used in old newspapers and comics. Lichtenstein took that humble trick and made it the signature of his painting.

The image itself was lifted from the kind of soap advertisements and comic panels that filled magazines in 1960s America. Blowing up such a throwaway picture to the size of a gallery painting was a bold move, and more than a few critics rolled their eyes at the idea of comic art hanging on museum walls. That reaction was part of the fun for Lichtenstein, who helped lead the Pop Art movement by turning ordinary commercial images into something worth a second look. This bathing woman, smiling and perfectly posed, plays right into the polished fantasy those ads were selling.