iKunstmuseum Basel (Hauptbau and Neubau)St. Alban
Roy Lichtenstein: Sweet Dreams, Baby!
A Neubau retrospective of the Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein.
Mehr in Basel
The title piece is a 1965 screenprint of a comic-book fist landing a punch, and one reporter said walking in felt like a 1980s shared flat with posters on every wall. Then you lean in. Lichtenstein cut his woodcuts in extra-hard wood against the grain, the curator told SRF, and some sheets took 18 print runs.
About fifty prints, from student experiments of the late 1940s to the 1990s, fill six rooms in the Neubau basement. Most of the 33 prints his foundation gave Basel for his centenary are shown for the first time, alongside two paintings on loan, Hopeless and Mirror #2.
SRF called him a tinkerer and a nerd, and suggested a magnifying glass for the screens, colour edges and layers. Room 6 is a lounge with books and a magnetic board for arranging your own dots and brushstrokes. The museum credits his cheap posters for putting Lichtenstein in so many living rooms, which explains the one in your parents' WG kitchen. Wednesdays run to 8pm.
Nicht verpassen
Sweet Dreams, Baby! (1965)
Look for the title piece, a screenprint nearly a metre tall of a comic-book fist landing a punch, the image SRF called Pop Art pure and simple.
Hopeless (1963)
A hugely enlarged comic panel of a crying woman, an oil painting whose dots are painted to look like a print.
Wallpaper with Blue Floor Interior (1992)
A five-panel screenprint nearly four metres wide, with a swirling blue carpet that nods to Lichtenstein's love of Van Gogh.
Portrait, Blue Face and Green Face (1989)
Three abstract faces made in 18 steps of lithography, woodcut, screenprint and a wax process, so matte patches sit beside glossy and iridescent ones.
The Sower (1985)
Van Gogh's sower redone as a Lichtenstein, printed from six aluminium plates, four Finnish birch blocks and 15 screens.
Gut für
- Abendbesuche
- Allein unterwegs
- Detailverliebte
Nichts für dich, wenn
You want the big comic canvases: apart from two paintings, this is about fifty prints.
Mit Kindern
Room 6, the Lichtenstein Lounge, has a magnetic board where you can build your own picture from brushstrokes, dots and grids, the way he collaged his prints.
Mehr Ausstellungen: Kunstmuseum Basel (Hauptbau and Neubau)
Jetzt in der Nähe
In der Nähe
Bildnachweise
8
- Roy Lichtenstein: Sweet Dreams, Baby!Courtesy of Kunstmuseum Basel (Hauptbau and Neubau)
- Emil Ferris: Between SelvesCourtesy of Cartoonmuseum Basel
- Gili Tal: Light and AiryGili Tal, Light and Airy, exhibition view, Kunsthalle Basel, 2026, photo: Philipp Hänger / Kunsthalle Basel
- Kunstmuseum Basel (Hauptbau and Neubau)Wladyslaw Sojka / Wikimedia Commons
- Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung LudwigBasmus / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Cartoonmuseum BaselCartoonmuseum Basel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Kunsthalle BaselCharles-François Marie Iguel (1827[1]-1897) / Wikimedia Commons, Gemeinfrei
- Historisches Museum Basel (Barfüsserkirche)James Steakley / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0