Reflections Series by Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtensteins Reflections Series

Roy Lichtenstein’s objective for his Reflections Prints series was to partially obscure the images with reflective streaks, as if behind glass or reflected by a mirror. Roy Lichtenstein’s Reflections Prints are a group of seven Reflection prints which Roy Lichtenstein completed at Tyler Graphics in 1989-90. Roy Lichtensteins Reflection Prints are partly obscured by semi-abstract blocks of color and pattern, all printed and collaged to the surface of the print, which simulate reflected light, as if the image shown is behind glass or reflected in another surface. This simulated reflection is a conceit Roy Lichtenstein developed in a series of Reflections paintings he started in 1988, but has a precedent in earlier works. Roy Lichtenstein regularly paraphrases other pictures in his art, often reusing aspects of his own works, and the Reflections Prints are a typical example.

About Roy Lichtenstein:

Roy Lichtenstein was a pop art painter whose works, in a style derived from comic strips, portray the trivialization of culture endemic in contemporary American life. Using bright, strident colors and techniques borrowed from the printing industry, he ironically incorporates mass-produced emotions and objects into highly sophisticated references to art history.He  was one of the first American Pop artists to achieve widespread renown, and he became a lightning rod for criticism of the movement.

Primary colors–red, yellow and blue, heavily outlined in black–became his favorites. Occasionally he used green. Instead of shades of color, he used the benday dot, a method by which an image is created, and its density of tone modulated in printing. Sometimes he selected a comic-strip scene, recomposed it, projected it onto his canvas and stenciled in the dots. “I want my painting to look as if it had been programmed,” Lichtenstein explained.