Line-cut on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Bull Profile Series
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>
Bull I
Presented by Klaus Anschel in memory of his wife Gerty 1997
animals: mammals
bull
<p>In these prints, Lichtenstein studies the progress of an image from figurative representation to abstraction. The initially recognisable form of the bull in the first panel is, by the sixth, transformed into a geometric abstraction. Gradually, the animal is reduced to its structure - backbone, horns, tail and foreleg - until the only remaining trace is a curved line suggesting horns in the upper-right corner. The relationship between figuration and abstraction is one of the basic issues of twentieth-century art.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
paper print line-cut
Bull I
image: 685 × 890 mm
Presented by Klaus Anschel in memory of his wife Gerty 1997
<p>In these <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a>, Lichtenstein studies the progress of an image from <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/figurative-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Figurative'"><span>figurative</span></a> <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/representational" title="Glossary definition for 'Representational'"><span>representation</span></a> to <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/abstract-art" title="Glossary definition for 'Abstract art'"><span>abstraction</span></a>. The initially recognisable form of the bull in the first panel is, by the sixth, transformed into a geometric abstraction. Gradually, the animal is reduced to its structure - backbone, horns, tail and foreleg - until the only remaining trace is a curved line suggesting horns in the upper-right corner. The relationship between figuration and abstraction is one of the basic issues of twentieth-century art. </p>
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2004-08-18T00:00:00
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animals: mammals bull