Relief print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/roy-lichtenstein-1508" aria-label="More by Roy Lichtenstein" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Roy Lichtenstein</a>
Nude Reading
ARTIST ROOMS 
Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Collection 2015
actions: postures and motions
adults
arm / arms raised
Ben-Day dots
book - non-specific
cartoon / comic strip
couch
cushion
domestic
emotions, concepts and ideas
female
formal qualities
furnishings
interior - non-specific
interiors
leisure and pastimes
nudes
objects
people
reading
reading, writing, printed matter
recreational activities
sitting
woman
<p><span>Nude Reading</span> 1994 is one of a series of nine screenprints that Lichtenstein produced in 1994 on the subject of the nude.<span> </span>Other examples from the series in Tate’s collection are <span>Roommates</span> 1994 (Tate AL00376) and <span>Two Nudes</span> 1994 (Tate AL00377). The prints were made at Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York and are recorded in the second volume of the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s prints (Corlett and Fine 2002). As well as using hand-cut stencils to produce his trademark Benday dots in irregularly shaped pieces, Lichtenstein employed computer-generated dye-cut stencils, produced by Swan Engraving, for some of the areas of dots and patterns in these prints. This copy of <span>Nude Reading </span>is number one of twelve artist’s proofs aside from the edition of sixty.</p>
paper print relief
14 March 2015 – 10 January 2016
2016-01-10
14 March 2015 – 10 January 2016
2016-01-10
2015-03-14
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh, UK)
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/
2015-03-14
ARTIST ROOMS Roy Lichtenstein
Collection based display
22 October 2016 – 26 February 2017
2017-02-26
22 October 2016 – 26 February 2017
2017-02-26
2016-10-22
Wolverhampton Art Gallery (Wolverhampton, UK)
http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk
2016-10-22
ARTIST ROOMS 2016: Roy Lichtenstein
Loan-out
22 September 2017 – 17 June 2018
2018-06-17
22 September 2017 – 17 June 2018
2018-06-17
2017-09-22
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2017-09-22
Roy Lichtenstein
Collection based display
13 July 2019 – 4 January 2020
2020-01-04
13 July 2019 – 7 September 2019
2019-09-07
2019-07-13
Grundy Art Gallery (Blackpool, UK)
28 September 2019 – 4 January 2020
2020-01-04
2019-09-28
Hatton Gallery (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
2019-07-13
ARTIST ROOMS 2019: Roy Lichtenstein
Loan-out
Nude Reading
object: 778 × 922 mm
frame: 914 × 1065 × 46 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a> 
Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Collection 2015
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Nude Reading</i> 1994 is one of a series of nine screenprints that Lichtenstein produced in 1994 on the subject of the nude.<i> </i>Other examples from the series in Tate’s collection are <i>Roommates</i> 1994 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lichtenstein-roommates-al00376" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AL00376</span></a>) and <i>Two Nudes</i> 1994 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lichtenstein-two-nudes-al00377" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AL00377</span></a>). The prints were made at Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York and are recorded in the second volume of the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s prints (Corlett and Fine 2002). As well as using hand-cut stencils to produce his trademark Benday dots in irregularly shaped pieces, Lichtenstein employed computer-generated dye-cut stencils, produced by Swan Engraving, for some of the areas of dots and patterns in these prints. This copy of <i>Nude Reading </i>is number one of twelve artist’s proofs aside from the edition of sixty. </p>
<p>In the final years of his life, Lichtenstein took up the theme of the nude – one of the major subjects in the history of visual art – and it became an important part of his late work. As well as series of prints, Lichtenstein made paintings on the subject of the nude, including works such as <i>Nudes with Beach Ball</i> 1994 and <i>Blue Nude</i> 1994. It was the first time that he had approached the subject, but also marked a return to the comic book style of imagery he had first developed in the early 1960s. Rather than working from life, Lichtenstein drew on female figures from the comic books he had first used in the 1960s, removed their clothes and imagined their bare bodies beneath in order to recreate them as nudes. Reproduced as comic-strip heroines, the figures in these works are intentionally provocative, presented to the viewer as a generic object of desire.</p>
<p>The nudes also show Lichtenstein developing compositional techniques. Speaking in an interview in 1994, he noted that he explored the subject of the nude because it was ‘a good excuse to contrast undulating and volumetric form with rigid geometry’ (quoted in Robert Hurlburt, ‘Lichtenstein Returns to Comic-Book Style’, <i>Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale</i>, 13 November 1994, cited in Christie’s, New York, <i>Prints &amp; Multiples</i>, auction catalogue, Sale 2548, 24–5 April 2012). Curator Sheena Wagstaff has explained: </p>
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</p><blockquote>In the Nudes, not only did Lichtenstein alter the equation in the compositional tension between motif and formal concerns, but also, crucially, he seized upon a new pictorial language. He deduced and acknowledged the nude as a form through which a new syntax could emerge by means of an understated narrative that implies a relationship between the artist-creator and the nude. </blockquote>
<blockquote>(Sheena Wagstaff, ‘Late Nudes’, in Rondeau and Wagstaff 2012, p.95.)</blockquote>
<p>The nudes relate to many other areas of Lichtenstein’s output, including reflections, mirrors and interiors, and they demonstrate his ongoing fascination with the modern masters, particularly Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. He explained: </p>
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</p><blockquote>I’ve always been interested in Matisse but maybe a little more interested in Picasso. But they are both overwhelming influences on everyone, really. Whether one tries to be like them or tries not to be like them, they’re always there as presences to be dealt with. They’re just too formidable to have no interest. I think that somebody who pretends he’s not interested is not interested in art. </blockquote>
<blockquote>(Roy Lichtenstein, ‘A Review of My Work Since 1961’, in Bader 2009., p.55.)</blockquote>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Mary Lee Corlett and Ruth E. Fine,<i> The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné: 1948–1997</i>, New York and Washington D.C., revised and updated second edition 2002.<br/>Graham Bader (ed.), <i>OCTOBER Files 7: Roy Lichtenstein</i>, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London 2009.<br/>Gianni Mercuri (ed.), <i>Roy</i> <i>Lichtenstein: Meditations on Art</i>, Milan 2010.<br/>James Rondeau and Sheena Wagstaff, <i>Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Modern, London and Art Institute of Chicago<i> </i>2012.</p>
<p> Lucy Askew<br/>Senior Curator, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh<br/>August 2014</p>
<p>Amended by Stephen Huyton<br/>Assistant Collection Registrar, ARTIST ROOMS<br/>September 2017</p>
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Summary
2018-02-22T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
actions: postures and motions adults arm / arms raised Ben-Day dots book - non-specific cartoon / comic strip couch cushion domestic emotions, concepts and ideas female formal qualities furnishings interior - non-specific interiors leisure and pastimes nudes objects people reading reading, writing, printed matter recreational activities sitting woman