Screenprint 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>
Modern Art I
ARTIST ROOMS 
Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Lent by The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Collection 2015
abstraction
adults
body
clothing and personal items
ear
eye
figure
from recognisable sources
head / face
high art
lifestyle and culture
mouth
necklace
objects
people
society
woman
<p><span>Modern Art I</span> 1996 was published by Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles and is recorded in the second volume of the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s prints (Corlett and Fine 2002). It is part of a series of <span>Modern Art </span>prints that Lichtenstein made during 1996, the year before he died. Another example, <span>Modern Art II </span>1996 (Tate AL00382), is also in Tate’s collection. In <span>Modern Art I</span> Lichtenstein explored the refracted style of cubism found in the work of modern masters such as Pablo Picasso. However, in Lichtenstein’s hands, with his use of Benday dots, blocks of colour and stark black outlines, the dislocated features are transformed into highly stylised imagery more common to slick cartoons and comic books. In <span>Modern Art II</span> Lichtenstein explored the cubist style further, in particular the dislocated figurative imagery of Picasso. The nose, with its starkly painted striations, suggests a reference to the imagery Picasso used in paintings such as <span>Les Demoiselles d’Avignon</span> 1907 (Museum of Modern Art, New York). Tate’s copy of <span>Modern Art I </span>is number three of ten artist’s proofs aside from the edition of fifty.</p>
paper print screenprint
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
Modern Art I
object: 1302 × 962 mm
frame: 1412 × 1078 × 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
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<p>
<i>Modern Art I</i> 1996 was published by Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles and is recorded in the second volume of the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s prints (Corlett and Fine 2002). It is part of a series of <i>Modern Art </i>prints that Lichtenstein made during 1996, the year before he died. Another example, <i>Modern Art II </i>1996 (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-modern-art-ii-al00382" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AL00382</span></a>), is also in Tate’s collection. In <i>Modern Art I</i> Lichtenstein explored the refracted style of cubism found in the work of modern masters such as Pablo Picasso. However, in Lichtenstein’s hands, with his use of Benday dots, blocks of colour and stark black outlines, the dislocated features are transformed into highly stylised imagery more common to slick cartoons and comic books. In <i>Modern Art II</i> Lichtenstein explored the cubist style further, in particular the dislocated figurative imagery of Picasso. The nose, with its starkly painted striations, suggests a reference to the imagery Picasso used in paintings such as <i>Les Demoiselles d’Avignon</i> 1907 (Museum of Modern Art, New York). Tate’s copy of <i>Modern Art I </i>is number three of ten artist’s proofs aside from the edition of fifty.</p>
<p>From the early 1960s Lichtenstein made works that focused on the work of modern masters, such as the painting <i>Woman with Flowered Hat</i> 1963. Speaking about this painting, Lichtenstein explained: </p>
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</p><blockquote>Instead of using subject matter that was considered vernacular, or everyday, I used subject matter that was celebrated as art. What I wanted to express wasn’t that Picasso was known and therefore commonplace. Nobody thought of Picasso as common. What I am painting is a kind of Picasso done the way a cartoonist might do it, or the way it might be described to you, so it loses the subtleties of Picasso, but it takes on other characteristics: the Picasso is converted to my pseudo-cartoon style and takes on a character of its own. Artists have often converted the work of other artists to their own style.<br/>(Roy Lichtenstein, ‘A Review of My Work Since 1961’, in Bader 2009, p.61.) </blockquote>
<p>Elsewhere, Lichtenstein noted: </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.<br/>(Ibid., p.55.)</blockquote>
<p>Lichtenstein was born in New York, and was a central player in American pop art. He came to prominence in the 1960s, making works based on imagery from comic strips, such as <i>In the Car</i> and <i>Whaam! </i>1963 (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-whaam-t00897" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T00897</span></a>). In these works he used the Benday dot, common to newspaper and magazine reproduction, to produce works that appeared mechanically reproduced, and which in fact are even more stylised than the cartoons Lichtenstein appropriated. Printmaking was an integral part of his practice throughout his career from the late 1950s through to the 1990s.</p>
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<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
abstraction adults body clothing and personal items ear eye figure from recognisable sources head / face high art lifestyle and culture mouth necklace objects people society woman