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Lot Essay
By the 1970s, Roy Lichtenstein turned his attention away from the comic books which inspired his early Pop Art masterpieces and began exploring the great movements of Modern Art. Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism—all of these provided the grist for Lichtenstein’s mill, as he created homages to the European masters, which he filtered and refined through a Pop Art lens. In the Entablatures, Lichtenstein playfully riffs on the American style of Beaux-Arts architecture so prevalent in turn-of-the- century New York. Measuring a full twelve feet in length, the monumentally-scaled Entablature #6 is an important example from this small, revelatory series, which encompasses only about ten black-and-white paintings made between 1971 and 1972. An elegant study in restraint, Entablature #6 epitomizes Lichtenstein’s signature Pop Art idiom: using Ben-Day dots and simple black outlines of varying widths and thicknesses, he flattens three-dimensional architecture into a crisply-delineated, syncopated pattern. Its elegance and symmetry, rendered on such a massive scale, demonstrates Lichtenstein’s shrewd translation of art historical precedent into his own, Pop Art vernacular, which he executes with characteristic wit and ingenuity.
Based on Classical Greek and Roman architecture, the neoclassical Beaux-Arts style was widely used between 1880 and 1920 in the United States for municipal buildings such as banks, libraries, and court houses. Essentially a derivative of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts style (itself a copy of Greco-Roman architecture), American Beaux-Arts design is a thrice-removed, imitative style—a copy of a copy of a copy. Indeed, the Beaux-Arts style is as far removed from its original source as Lichtenstein’s comic books were from “High” Art. In Entablature #6, he accentuates this effect, playing up the contrast and flattening out the architectural detail to create a seemingly infinite band of repeating decoration that displays an almost comic blandness. That Lichtenstein should focus on the entablature itself is noteworthy, since this decorative band of molding is typically used as a transitional area between the columns below and the triangular pediment above. Indeed, in Entablature #6 Lichtenstein questions the very nature of originality itself, especially as it applies to American Beaux-Arts design, saying: “Our architecture is not van der Rohe, it’s really McDonalds” (R. Lichtenstein, quoted in Y.-A. Bois, “Two Birds with One Stone,” Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago, 2012, p. 64).
Coming of age in the early 1960s as one of the leading figures of the Pop Art movement, Roy Lichtenstein was already well-versed in its aesthetics by the time he painted Entablature #6. As the 70s dawned, Lichtenstein increasingly searched for newer and more challenging imagery and looked to modern art masters like Picasso and Matisse for inspiration. A few years earlier, Lichtenstein had limited himself to a series of rather zen-like, esoteric paintings that now stand as some of his most inspired work. Brushstrokes, Mirrors, and Stretcher Bars, for example, are among the most deliberately limited, abstract series of his career. Conceptual and rich in historical iconography, the Entablatures provided a natural continuation of these earlier series, allowing Lichtenstein to advance the ideology of Pop while tackling more complex, historically-loaded yet visually abstract subject matter. He began painting the Entablatures in 1971 and ultimately produced two separate series, in 1971-1972 and 1974-1976. Entablature #6 belongs to the smaller, earlier series and consists solely of works in black and white. As his source material, Lichtenstein photographed the Beaux-Arts architecture of lower Manhattan, focusing primarily on the vicinity of Wall Street and 28th street. He preferred to capture the buildings at mid-day under raking sunlight, which resulted in dramatic contrast between light and shadow that were exaggerated even further in the black-and-white photographs. Rather than painting from academic drawings of Beaux-Arts architecture or reproductions in a newspaper or magazine, for the Entablatures, Lichtenstein deliberately created his own photographs, often zeroing in on the most innocuous elements. The Entablature paintings played up the anonymous quality of the architecture even further. With its decorative band of repeating motifs, sleek surface, and elongated horizontal format, Entablature #6 also playfully jabs at the Minimalist and Color Field paintings of Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and even Donald Judd. Indeed, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, Lichtenstein tackles yet another of the great art “isms.” He described: “The Entablatures represent my response to Minimalism… It’s my way of saying that the Greeks did repeated motifs very early on, and I’m showing, in a humorous way, that Minimalism has a long history...It was essentially a way of making a Minimalist painting that has a Classical reference” (R. Lichtenstein, quoted in ibid., p. 67).
As one of the founders of the Pop Art movement, Lichtenstein’s Entablatures might have been seen as an attack on the practices of Minimalism, yet he has readily admitted: “The things that I have apparently parodied I actually admire” (R. Lichtenstein, quoted in ibid., p.66) Indeed, sly undercurrents of humor enliven the Entablatures despite their sleek appearance and the seriousness of their subject matter, making it one of his greatest series. In Entablature #6, Lichtenstein wittily extends the joke to include the notion of artistic originality, whether applied to Beaux-Arts, Minimalism, or even the history of art itself. For an American artist working in the postwar years, this concept would have been especially significant. As Diane Waldman has written: “ The Entablatures are part of [Lichtenstein’s] exploration of American culture’s complex relationship to its European ancestry, first as Europe’s artistic stepchild, then its heir, then its rebellious and independent cousin. …Lichtenstein tackles such momentous subjects with modesty, wit, and irony, as well as ambition, using the format that he derived from the comic strip as the armature on which he built his response” (D. Waldman, Roy Lichtenstein, New York, 1994, p. 202). Indeed, concealed within its sleek facade, Entablature #6 displays a painterly virtuosity whose effortless appearance belies the intellectual prowess necessary to its creation.
Based on Classical Greek and Roman architecture, the neoclassical Beaux-Arts style was widely used between 1880 and 1920 in the United States for municipal buildings such as banks, libraries, and court houses. Essentially a derivative of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts style (itself a copy of Greco-Roman architecture), American Beaux-Arts design is a thrice-removed, imitative style—a copy of a copy of a copy. Indeed, the Beaux-Arts style is as far removed from its original source as Lichtenstein’s comic books were from “High” Art. In Entablature #6, he accentuates this effect, playing up the contrast and flattening out the architectural detail to create a seemingly infinite band of repeating decoration that displays an almost comic blandness. That Lichtenstein should focus on the entablature itself is noteworthy, since this decorative band of molding is typically used as a transitional area between the columns below and the triangular pediment above. Indeed, in Entablature #6 Lichtenstein questions the very nature of originality itself, especially as it applies to American Beaux-Arts design, saying: “Our architecture is not van der Rohe, it’s really McDonalds” (R. Lichtenstein, quoted in Y.-A. Bois, “Two Birds with One Stone,” Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago, 2012, p. 64).
Coming of age in the early 1960s as one of the leading figures of the Pop Art movement, Roy Lichtenstein was already well-versed in its aesthetics by the time he painted Entablature #6. As the 70s dawned, Lichtenstein increasingly searched for newer and more challenging imagery and looked to modern art masters like Picasso and Matisse for inspiration. A few years earlier, Lichtenstein had limited himself to a series of rather zen-like, esoteric paintings that now stand as some of his most inspired work. Brushstrokes, Mirrors, and Stretcher Bars, for example, are among the most deliberately limited, abstract series of his career. Conceptual and rich in historical iconography, the Entablatures provided a natural continuation of these earlier series, allowing Lichtenstein to advance the ideology of Pop while tackling more complex, historically-loaded yet visually abstract subject matter. He began painting the Entablatures in 1971 and ultimately produced two separate series, in 1971-1972 and 1974-1976. Entablature #6 belongs to the smaller, earlier series and consists solely of works in black and white. As his source material, Lichtenstein photographed the Beaux-Arts architecture of lower Manhattan, focusing primarily on the vicinity of Wall Street and 28th street. He preferred to capture the buildings at mid-day under raking sunlight, which resulted in dramatic contrast between light and shadow that were exaggerated even further in the black-and-white photographs. Rather than painting from academic drawings of Beaux-Arts architecture or reproductions in a newspaper or magazine, for the Entablatures, Lichtenstein deliberately created his own photographs, often zeroing in on the most innocuous elements. The Entablature paintings played up the anonymous quality of the architecture even further. With its decorative band of repeating motifs, sleek surface, and elongated horizontal format, Entablature #6 also playfully jabs at the Minimalist and Color Field paintings of Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and even Donald Judd. Indeed, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, Lichtenstein tackles yet another of the great art “isms.” He described: “The Entablatures represent my response to Minimalism… It’s my way of saying that the Greeks did repeated motifs very early on, and I’m showing, in a humorous way, that Minimalism has a long history...It was essentially a way of making a Minimalist painting that has a Classical reference” (R. Lichtenstein, quoted in ibid., p. 67).
As one of the founders of the Pop Art movement, Lichtenstein’s Entablatures might have been seen as an attack on the practices of Minimalism, yet he has readily admitted: “The things that I have apparently parodied I actually admire” (R. Lichtenstein, quoted in ibid., p.66) Indeed, sly undercurrents of humor enliven the Entablatures despite their sleek appearance and the seriousness of their subject matter, making it one of his greatest series. In Entablature #6, Lichtenstein wittily extends the joke to include the notion of artistic originality, whether applied to Beaux-Arts, Minimalism, or even the history of art itself. For an American artist working in the postwar years, this concept would have been especially significant. As Diane Waldman has written: “ The Entablatures are part of [Lichtenstein’s] exploration of American culture’s complex relationship to its European ancestry, first as Europe’s artistic stepchild, then its heir, then its rebellious and independent cousin. …Lichtenstein tackles such momentous subjects with modesty, wit, and irony, as well as ambition, using the format that he derived from the comic strip as the armature on which he built his response” (D. Waldman, Roy Lichtenstein, New York, 1994, p. 202). Indeed, concealed within its sleek facade, Entablature #6 displays a painterly virtuosity whose effortless appearance belies the intellectual prowess necessary to its creation.