Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was the first American Pop artists who managed to be known on a widespread level. He was born as Roy Fox Lichtenstein in New York City. He grew up in Manhattan with his mother and father, his father was a real - estate broker and his mother was a home maker. Roy spent a lot of his time listening to science fiction radio, visiting the American Museum Of Natural History and building model air planes and drawing, this took over his childhood. However he artistic flares came through as a teenage, when he took watercolour classes at the Parsons School of Design.


He began painting classes at the Arts Student League in 1940, he was producing work which was in the style of Reginald Marsh which in this case was a realist style. Roy then decided to enrol at Ohio State University just a year later, when he studied drawing and design. He created many sculptures of animals and still life, these where inspired by Picasso and Braque. The next few years his work had spread in gallery shows, including a group exhibition at the Ten Thirty Gallery in Cleveland. This happened to be where he met his future wife Isabel Wilson. He work included all walks of life including street workers, musicians and race care drivers. He also produced works of art which included birds, insects, knights and dragons in a surrealist style.


John Heller Gallery in New York began showing his work in 1952. By 1957 he started producing abstract imagery using thick textured paint, unlike other artists at the time he started to show figures into his artwork. Some even featured characters such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. In 1960 Roy was a assistant professor, it was at this point where he met Allan Kaprow where he was introduced to other artists that were producing cartoon images and this inspired Lichtenstein greatly.