iWhitney Museum of American ArtMeatpacking District
Roy Lichtenstein: 1997
A focused show of rarely seen works from the final year of the Pop artist's life, including prints, photographs and sculptural maquettes alongside studies for unrealized projects, revealing his late-career experimentation.
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Down the left edge of Brushstroke Still Life with Box runs a strip of bare white. That is where Lichtenstein's brushstroke was meant to go, over an empty vase and an empty box, and the painting was never finished.
The rest of this third-floor show is studies rather than finished pictures: two pyramids of cut paper, tape and acrylic on foamcore, a sketch for a chapel mural that was never built, and two mirrored panels for a Bellagio hotel mural. The Whitney notes his palette was widening to mint green, turquoise, coral and cyan, and the heavy black outlines were going. Paper folded onto foamcore to pass for solid is also how StreetEasy photos make a studio read as a loft.
Whitehot Magazine's Kurt Cole Eidsvig found a show to be seen and enjoyed in its own right. For finished Pop paintings, Like New on the fifth floor is the one. Admission is $30, free for visitors 25 and under, and the Whitney is open until 10pm on Fridays.
Editor's pick
Prints, photographs, sculptural maquettes, and studies for projects he never realized, all from 1997, the last year of Lichtenstein's life. Most of it is rarely shown.
Look for
Brushstroke Still Life with Box
An empty vase and an empty box, with a bare white strip down the left edge where the obliterating brushstroke was meant to be painted. A 1996 study hangs with it.
Wall Pyramid (Model) and Pyramid (Maquette)
Tent-like pyramids of cut painted and printed paper, taped onto foamcore. The solid look is an illusion of folded surfaces, shown against a study of a suburban house.
Bellagio Hotel Mural: Still Life with Reclining Nude (Study)
Two mirrored panels: one a comic-book-style reclining nude, the other echoing an ancient statue, with a man holding an artist's palette.
Chapel of the Eucharist Mural (Study)
Leonardo's Last Supper table with no figures at it, and a flash of light above it that the critic called a visual POP.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want finished paintings rather than studies, drawings and maquettes.
With kids
Free for visitors 25 and under; the show is drawings, collage studies and models.
Also at Whitney Museum of American Art
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Image credits
8
- Roy Lichtenstein: 1997© Roy Lichtenstein Foundation
- Yoshitomo NaraCourtesy of David Zwirner
- Jem Perucchini: SospiroCourtesy the artist and Corvi-Mora, London
- Whitney Museum of American ArtBeyond My Ken, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- David ZwirnerCourtesy David Zwirner
- Hauser & WirthJim.henderson, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dia ChelseaFound5dollar, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Pace GalleryPace Gallery