Roy Lichtenstein lived from 1923 until 1997 and was active as an artist from the late 1940s until his death. Although he worked in several different styles and media, he is best known for his large paintings that are based on comic book styles. These works portray heroic men, concerned women, and moments of conflict, frequently including comic-specific techniques such as spiked dialogue bubbles with words like "WHAAM" and "BLAM" in them.
Pop Art
Lichtenstein's comic-based art, due to its commentary on popular culture and its appearance in the 1960s, became closely associated with the Pop Art movement. Lichtenstein is often grouped by historians with artists such as Jim Dine, Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.
Ben-Day Dots
Lichtenstein's art is most distinctively characterized by the use of enlarged and exaggerated Ben-Day dots. These dots, named after their inventor Benjamin Day, were used extensively as a technique of shading in graphic design and printing. Usually small enough that they appear to the eye as solid colors, they were often enlarged by Lichtenstein in his art, thus creating a commentary on the process itself.
Reversal of Automation
Lichtenstein reversed the progress of the automation of visual arts in his hand-made reproduction of automated techniques that had themselves replaced hand creation. Printing, including things like Ben-Day dots, had replaced lithography, which itself had replaced painting. Lichtenstein completed this circle of progress by parodying the most advanced techniques using the most archaic.
Irony
The use of irony characterized Lichtenstein's work, as it did the work of many of his Pop Art contemporaries such as Warhol. Subject matter was often presented without commentary, but in such a way that the viewer was made aware of the process of its original presentation, rather than just its content.
"In the Car"
Lichtenstein's 1963 work, "In the Car," demonstrates many of his techniques. It portrays a man and a woman seen through the passenger window. Their faces are composed of the trademark Ben-Day dots, the woman's hair bright is yellow, and the man's hair is black and blue. Cartoon "speed lines" surround them. The woman looks stoic as the man peers at her out of the corner of his eye. This collection of well-known cartoon techniques elicits an entirely different response in Lichtenstein's art than it would in a comic book because the image is nearly 5 feet high by 7 feet wide, painted in oils on canvas and divorced from its original context.
