''Drowning Girl'' (also known as ''Secret Hearts'' or ''I Don't Care! I'd Rather Sink'') is a 1963 American painting in oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas by
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...
, based on original art by Tony Abruzzo. The painting is considered among Lichtenstein's most significant works, perhaps on a par with his acclaimed 1963 diptych ''
Whaam!
''Whaam!'' is a 1963 diptych painting by the American artist Roy Lichtenstein. It is one of the best-known works of pop art, and among Lichtenstein's most important paintings. ''Whaam!'' was first exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New ...
''. One of the most representative paintings of the
pop art movement, ''Drowning Girl'' was acquired by the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
in 1971.
The painting has been described as a "masterpiece of
melodrama
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...
", and is one of the artist's earliest images depicting women in tragic situations, a theme to which he often returned in the mid-1960s. It shows a teary-eyed woman on a turbulent sea. She is emotionally distressed, seemingly from a romance. Using the conventions of
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
art, a
thought bubble reads: "I Don't Care! I'd Rather Sink — Than Call Brad For Help!" This narrative element highlights the clichéd melodrama, while its graphics — including
Ben-Day dots
The Ben Day process is a printing and photoengraving technique for producing areas of grey or (with four-colour printing) various colours by using fine patterns of ink on the paper. It was developed in 1879 by illustrator and printer Benjamin H ...
that echo the effect of the printing process — reiterate Lichtenstein's theme of
painterly
Painterliness is a concept based on ''german: malerisch'' ('painterly'), a word popularized by Swiss art historian Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945) to help focus, enrich and standardize the terms being used by art historians of his time to cha ...
work that imitates mechanized reproduction. The work is derived from a 1962
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
panel; both the graphical and narrative elements of the work are cropped from the source image. It also borrows from
Hokusai
, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock print series ''Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the ...
's ''
The Great Wave off Kanagawa
is a woodblock print by Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist Hokusai, created in late 1831 during the Edo period of Japanese history. The print depicts three boats moving through a storm-tossed sea, with a large wave forming a spiral in the centre an ...
'' and from elements of modernist artists
Jean Arp
Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist.
Early life
Arp was born in Straßburg (now Stras ...
and
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...
. It is one of several Lichtenstein works that mention a character named Brad who is absent from the picture.
Background
During the late 1950s and early 1960s a number of American painters began to adapt the imagery and motifs of comic strips.
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...
made drawings of comic strip characters in 1958.
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
produced his earliest paintings in the style in 1960. Lichtenstein, unaware of Warhol's work, produced ''
Look Mickey
''Look Mickey'' (also known as ''Look Mickey!'') is a 1961 oil on canvas painting by Roy Lichtenstein. Widely regarded as the bridge between his abstract expressionism and pop art works, it is notable for its ironic humor and aesthetic value ...
'' and ''Popeye'' in 1961.
Although Warhol had produced silkscreens of
comic strips
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...
and of other
pop art subjects, he supposedly relegated himself to ''
Campbell's Soup Cans
''Campbell's Soup Cans'' (sometimes referred to as ''32 Campbell's Soup Cans'') is a Visual arts, work of art produced between November 1961 and March or April 1962 by American artist Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each mea ...
'' as a subject at the time to avoid competing with the more finished style of comics by Lichtenstein.
He once said "I've got to do something that really will have a lot of impact that will be different enough from Lichtenstein and
James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist (November 29, 1933 – March 31, 2017) was an American artist and one of the proponents of the pop art movement. Drawing from his background working in sign painting, Rosenquist's pieces often explored the role of advertising a ...
, that will be very personal, that won't look like I'm doing exactly what they're doing."
![Roy Lichtenstein](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Roy_Lichtenstein.jpg)
''Drowning Girl'' depicted the advancement of Lichtenstein's cartoon work, which represented his 1961 departure from his
abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
period, from animated cartoons to more serious themes such as romance and wartime armed forces.
Lichtenstein said that, at the time, "I was very excited about, and very interested in, the highly emotional content yet detached impersonal handling of love, hate, war, etc., in these cartoon images."
Lichtenstein parodied four Picassos between 1962 and 1963. Picasso's depictions of weeping women may have influenced Lichtenstein to produce portrayals of vulnerable teary-eyed women, such as the subjects of ''
Hopeless'' and ''Drowning Girl''. Another possible influence on his emphasis on depicting distressed women in the early- to mid-1960s was that his first marriage was dissolving at the time. Lichtenstein's first marriage to Isabel Wilson, which resulted in two sons, lasted from 1949 to 1965; the couple separated in 1963.
[
When Lichtenstein made his transition to comic-based work, he began to mimic the style while adapting the subject matter. He applied simplified color schemes and commercial printing-like techniques. The style he adopted was "simple, well-framed images solid fields of bold color often bounded by thick, stark border lines."] The borrowed technique was "representing tonal variations with patterns of colored circles that imitated the half-tone screens of Ben-Day dots used in newspaper printing". PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
asserts that this is an adaptation of the ligne claire
''Ligne claire'' ( French for "clear line", ; nl, klare lijn) is a style of drawing created and pioneered by Hergé, the Belgian cartoonist and creator of ''The Adventures of Tintin''. It uses clear strong lines sometimes of varied width and n ...
style associated with Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi (; 22 May 1907 – 3 March 1983), known by the pen name Hergé (; ), from the French pronunciation of his reversed initials ''RG'', was a Belgian cartoonist. He is best known for creating ''The Adventures of Tintin'', ...
. Lichtenstein once said of his technique: "I take a cliche and try to organize its forms to make it monumental."
The subject of ''Drowning Girl'' is an example of Lichtenstein's post-1963 comics-based women who "look hard, crisp, brittle, and uniformly modish in appearance, as if they all came out of the same pot of makeup." In the early 1960s, Lichtenstein produced several "fantasy drama" paintings of women in love affairs with domineering men causing women to be miserable, such as ''Drowning Girl'', ''Hopeless'' and ''In the Car
''In the Car'' (sometimes ''Driving'') is a 1963 pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein. The smaller, older of the two versions of this painting formerly held the record for highest auction price for a Lichtenstein painting. The larger version has ...
''. These works served as prelude to 1964 paintings of innocent "girls next door" in a variety of tenuous emotional states.[ "In ''Hopeless'' and ''Drowning Girl'', for example, the heroines appear as victims of unhappy love affairs, with one displaying helplessness ... and the other defiance (she would rather drown than ask for her lover's help)."][ ''Drowning Girl'', the aforementioned works and '' Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But...'' are among those tragedies that make the author a popular draw at museums.]
History
''Drowning Girl'' is derived from the splash page
Splash page may refer to:
* Splash page (comics), a comic book page that is mostly or entirely taken up by a single image or panel
* A splash screen on a website or software
See also
* Splash (disambiguation)
* Page (disambiguation)
Page most ...
from "Run for Love!", illustrated by Tony Abruzzo and lettered by Ira Schnapp
Ira Schnapp (October 10, 1894 – July 24, 1969) was a logo designer and letterer who brought his classic and art deco design styles to DC Comics (then National Comics) beginning with the redesign of the ''Superman'' logo in 1940. He did a great d ...
, in ''Secret Hearts'' #83 (November 1962), DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
. This is the same comic book issue that inspired ''Hopeless''.
In 1963, Lichtenstein was parodying various types of sources such as commercial illustrations, comic imagery and even modern masterpieces. The masterpieces represented what could have been dubbed the "canon" of art and was thought of as "high art," while the "low-art" subject matter included comic strip images. His masterworks sources included the likes of Cézanne, Mondrian and Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
. During this time in his career, Lichtenstein noted that "the things that I have apparently parodied I actually admire." At the time, Lichtenstein was exploring the theme of "industrialization of emotion". In Lichtenstein's obituary, ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' critic Christopher Knight Christopher or Chris Knight may refer to:
Film and television
*Christopher Knight (actor) (born 1957), American actor
* Christopher Knight (filmmaker), blogger and filmmaker
* Chris Knight (''Neighbours''), fictional character in the soap opera '' ...
said the work was "a witty rejoinder to De Kooning's famously brushy paintings of women". His comic romances often depicted stereotypical representations of thwarted passions. Although the Lichtenstein Foundation website claims that Lichtenstein did not begin using his opaque projector
The opaque projector, epidioscope, epidiascope or episcope is a device which displays opaque materials by shining a bright lamp onto the object from above. A system of mirrors, prisms and/or imaging lenses is used to focus an image of the material ...
technique until the fall of 1963,[ Lichtenstein described his process for producing comics based art, including ''Drowning Girl'':
When Lichtenstein had his first solo show at the ]Leo Castelli Gallery
Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...
in New York City in February 1962, it sold out before the opening. In addition to ''Drowning Girl'', the exhibition included ''Look Mickey'', ''Engagement Ring
An engagement ring, also known as a betrothal ring, is a ring indicating that the person wearing it is engaged to be married, especially in Western cultures. A ring is presented as an engagement gift by a partner to their prospective spouse when ...
'', '' Blam'' and ''The Refrigerator''. The show ran from February 10 through March 3, 1962. According to the Lichtenstein Foundation website, ''Drowning Girl'' was part of Lichtenstein's first exhibition at Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles from April 1 – April 27, 1963, featuring ''Masterpiece
A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...
'', '' Portrait of Madame Cézanne'' and other works from 1962 and 1963. It was also part of his second solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery from September 28 – October 24, 1963 that included '' Torpedo...Los!'', ''Baseball Manager
''Baseball Manager'' is a 1963 pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein. The magna on canvas measures 68 x 56 inches. The painting is visible at Marlins Park (Promenade Level, Section 19), located in Miami, Florida.
See also
*1963 in art
Even ...
'', ''In the Car'', ''Conversation'', and ''Whaam!''.[ Marketing materials for the show included the ]lithograph
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
'' Crak!'' The Museum of Modern Art acquired ''Drowning Girl'' in 1971, and their webpage for this work credits Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the pos ...
and Mr. and Mrs. Bagley Wright for the acquisition.
Description
Some sources describe the subjects of Lichtenstein's tragic girls series as heroines (in the sense that they are the counterparts to the heroes),[ and others do not (in the sense that they are not heroic).] ''Drowning Girl'' is a painting of a female subject who would prefer to give in to the power of the ocean than call for aid. Lichtenstein's version of the scene eliminates everything but the sea and a few body parts of the subject: her head, shoulder and hand, which are barely above the water. As her face is presented her eyes are shut with drops of what appear to be tears flowing from them. Because Lichtenstein only presents a single frame, the viewer does not know what happened before this moment and what is going to happen after it. Furthermore, the viewer has no way to know who Brad is and why she is so reluctant to call him.
According to ''The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art'', the most important element of Lichtenstein's procedure in the early 1960s was "the enlargement and unification of his source material". Although, according to some sources, the changes made to produce ''Drowning Girl'' are not regarded as significant,[.] Lichtenstein made several notable changes from the original source: "In the original illustration, the drowning girl's boyfriend appears in the background, clinging to a capsized boat. Lichtenstein cropped the image dramatically, showing the girl alone and encircled by a threatening wave. He changed the caption from 'I don't care if I have a cramp!' to 'I don't care!' and the boyfriend's name from Mal to Brad." With the former narrative change, Lichtenstein removed evidence that the drowning girl has a cramp in her leg.[ With the latter narrative change, Lichtenstein attempted to change the perception of the boyfriend. When discussing another work ('' I Know...Brad''), Lichtenstein stated that the name Brad sounded heroic to him and was used with the aim of clichéd oversimplification.
Lichtenstein's method entailed "strengthening of the formal aspects of the composition, a stylization of motif, and a 'freezing' of both emotion and actions".] Although comic-book panels depict a moment in time, ''Drowning Girl'' is borrowed from an example of a comic-book panel depiction of a moment relatively more "pregnant" with past- and future-dependent drama than most moments. This work also marks a phase in Lichtenstein's career when many of his works were given present-participial titles such as '' Sleeping Girl'', ''Crying Girl
''Crying Girl'' is the name of two different works by Roy Lichtenstein: a 1963 offset lithograph on lightweight, off-white wove paper and a 1964 porcelain enamel on steel.
Background
During the late 1810s and early 1820s, many American painters ...
'' and ''Blonde Waiting'', which accentuates the works' "relation to process and action."[ According to ''The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art'', during this phase of Lichtenstein's career "a constant if restrained and a gentle sense of humor contribute just as much to the cheerful lightness of Lichtenstein's work as the balanced, completely harmonious composition."]
Narrative content was in the forefront of much of Lichtenstein's work as a means to engage the viewer.[.] Measuring 171.6 cm × 169.5 cm (67.625 in × 66.75 in), ''Drowning Girl'' presents "a young woman who seems to have cried herself a river ... literally drowning in emotion," according to Janis Hendrickson. The melodrama
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...
makes it clear that she has been hurt by a "Brad", the name given to several of Lichtenstein's heroes. Vian Shamounki Borchert says that the caption makes it clear that the subject is practically "drowning in a sea of tears".
In typical Lichtenstein fashion, the tragic female is presented "in a suspended state of distress."[ According to Janis Hendrickson, the subject's head appears to rest on a wave as if it were a pillow and lies in the water as if it were a bed, creating a blend of "eroticism and final resting place".] The waters of the sea swirl around the subject's waves of hair creating the perception of a whirlpool.[ The painting is representative of Lichtenstein's affinity for single-frame drama that reduces the viewer's ability to identify with it and that abstracts emotion. His use of industrial and mechanical appearance further trivialize the sentiments,][ although the painterly touches add to its simplification.]
General context
In the early 1960s Lichtenstein's theme of comics-based work was hotly debated. In a 1963 article in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', Brian O'Doherty wrote that Lichtenstein's work was not art, saying Lichtenstein was "one of the worst artists in America" who "briskly went about making a sow's ear out of a sow's ear."[ This was part of a widespread debate about the merits of Lichtenstein's comic blow-ups as true art. In January 1964 '']Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' ran a story under the title "Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?" on this controversy. Later reviews were much kinder. Todd Brewster
Todd Brewster is an American author, journalist, and film producer. He is presently the senior visiting lecturer in journalism at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
Career
Brewster served as senior editorial producer for ...
noted that this may have been motivated by popular demand; he told ''Life'' in 1986 that "Those cartoon blowups may have disturbed the critics, but collectors, tired of the solemnity of abstract expressionism, were ready for some comic relief. Why couldn't the funny pages be fine art?" His work is now widely accepted, although some criticize him for borrowing from comics without attributing the original creators, paying royalties, or seeking permission from copyright holders. David Barsalou has dedicated decades to identifying all of Lichtenstein's source materials and has posted more than 1,000 images on Flickr detailing Lichtenstein's unrecognized sources.
Some critics question Lichtenstein's artistic skills. Everett Kinstler said that despite Lichtenstein's association with romance comics, in his day "no comics publisher would have hired Lichtenstein—he wasn't good enough." Kinstler said Lichtenstein lacked the ability to portray the emotional range of the story through facial expressions and body language independently.
Reception
''Drowning Girl'' was painted at the apex of Lichtenstein's use of enlarged dots, cropping, and magnification of the original source. In 1993, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
curator Diane Waldman noted that Lichtenstein made ''Drowning Girl'' a cornerstone of his career because of "his extraordinary sense of organization, his ability to use a sweeping curve and manipulate it into an allover pattern".[.] According to the 2007 edition of ''The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists'', the work is "a mix of cliché, melodrama, pathos, and absurdity ..." In 1995, art scholar Jonathan Fineberg called it "a remarkably impassive style". The image is typical of Lichtenstein's depiction of comic subjects responding to a situation in a clichéd manner.
Lichtenstein's tinkering with the source material resulted in a recomposition with sharper focus after he eliminated several elements that distract from the depiction of the woman, such as the capsized
Capsizing or keeling over occurs when a boat or ship is rolled on its side or further by wave action, instability or wind force beyond the angle of positive static stability or it is upside down in the water. The act of recovering a vessel fro ...
boat, troubled male subject and the general seascape. The result, Lanchner wrote, was swirling, swooping waves and "animate white foam" that envelope the subject with a "pictorial buoyancy" that form an "aquatic continuum".
''Drowning Girl'' presents an "unmistakeable acknowledgement to the flamboyant linearism of Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...
". The waves are intended to "recall Hokusai
, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock print series ''Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the ...
as well as the biomorphic forms of Arp and Miró;" just as the source comics may have intended to. Lichtenstein has claimed a strong relation between the original comic book source panel and Hokusai's ''The Great Wave off Kanagawa
is a woodblock print by Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist Hokusai, created in late 1831 during the Edo period of Japanese history. The print depicts three boats moving through a storm-tossed sea, with a large wave forming a spiral in the centre an ...
'', making this work a bridge between the two. The adaptation of the wave print is said to add a decorative look and feel to the painting, without which the work might be much more alarming to the viewer. Lichtenstein even made the connection between ''Drowning Girls arabesque waves and "the Art Nouveau aesthetic". Regarding this work, Lichtenstein stated:
Tøjner describes the work as "Lichtenstein's finest formulation of a counter-image to the many explosions in his universe", noting that the drama is past its peak although it may seem to be at a crescendo. He also notes that "the tears are drawn with classic Lichtenstein waxy fullness" despite the surrounding water, which must be significant since "naturalistic justification" is absent.[ A November 1963 ''Art Magazine'' review stated that this was one of the "broad and powerful paintings" of the 1963 exhibition at Castelli's Gallery.][ Nonetheless, the name of the work was not universally known. In ''Art Magazine's'' review of his 1964 Castelli Gallery show, Lichtenstein was referred to as the author of ''I Don't Care, I'd Rather Sink'' (''Drowning Girl'').][ In 2005, Gary Garrels of the Museum of Modern Art wrote that the work is a "poetics of the utterly banal, of displaced ordinariness" resulting in an "image frozen in time and space", making it "iconic".] Comparing this to the source, Garrels says it is a rendering "in a simplified vocabulary" produced while Lichtenstein put aside his mechanical objectivity. According to ''The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art'', extreme examples of his formalization become "virtual abstraction" when the viewer recalls that the motif is an element of a larger work. Thus, Lichtenstein reinforced a non-realist view of comic strips and advertisements, presenting them as artificial images with minimalistic graphic techniques. Lichtenstein's magnification of his source material stressed the plainness of his motifs as an equivalent to mechanical commercial drawing, leading to implications about his statements on modern industrial America. Nonetheless, Lichtenstein appears to have accepted the American capitalist industrial culture.
In 2003, Sarah Rich and Joyce Henri Robinson contrasted Lichtenstein's Ben-Day dots
The Ben Day process is a printing and photoengraving technique for producing areas of grey or (with four-colour printing) various colours by using fine patterns of ink on the paper. It was developed in 1879 by illustrator and printer Benjamin H ...
use in ''Drowning Girl'' with another artist's work, noting that the work "satirizes the melodrama of soap operas and serial comics, turning the drama of the title figure's potential suicide into a high camp performance".
In 2009, Lanchner wrote of how Lichtenstein's translation of a "highly charged" content with coolly handled presentation intensified the contrast between the two.
Many sources describe ''Whaam!'' and ''Drowning Girl'' as Lichtenstein's most famous works. It is also regarded as one of his most influential works along with ''Whaam!'' and ''Look Mickey''. John Elderfield
John Elderfield (born 25 April 1943) was Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 2003 to 2008.''Who’s Who 2011'', A&C Black, 2011 He served as the Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Distinguished Curator a ...
, Museum of Modern Art chief curator noted that the 2004 "MoMA in Berlin" exhibition held during the Museum's renovation was a "synoptic overview of 20th-century art". Highlights from the 212-piece exhibition according to various publications such as ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and artnet
Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City, in the United States, and is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly traded company based in Berlin that is listed on t ...
were van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...
's ''The Starry Night
''The Starry Night'' ( nl, De sterrennacht) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Proven ...
'', Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...
's ''Dance
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...
'' and Lichtenstein's ''Drowning Girl'', all of which were touring outside the United States for the first time.
''Drowning Girl'' was part of the largest-ever retrospective of Lichtenstein, which visited the Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
in 2012, the National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
in Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, in 2012 and 2013, the Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...
in London in 2013, and the Centre Pompidou in 2013. During the 2012–13 retrospective, ''The Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'' described ''Drowning Girl'' as Lichtenstein's "masterpiece of melodrama". Danish art critic and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located on the shore of the Øresund Sound in Humlebæk, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the most visited art museum in Denmark, and has an extensive permanent collection of modern and cont ...
director Poul Erik Tøjner
Poul Erik Tøjner (born 25 February 1959) is a Danish museum director and art critic. Since 2000 he has been director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark.
Biography
Tøjner studied philosophy (1981) and Nordic philology (19 ...
called the work an example of Lichtenstein's "post-coital
Sexual intercourse (or coitus or copulation) is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion and thrusting of the penis into the vagina for sexual pleasure or reproduction.Sexual intercourse most commonly means penile–vaginal penetrat ...
perdition" pieces, describing it as the "star witness" of this genre of his works. He notes that the subject is reaching far-flung depths as she acts out of pride. Tøjner perceived eroticism in this painting, likening the open mouth to a vaginal feature and noting the singularity of Lichtenstein using an open mouth. With that in mind, he compares the tears to ejaculate residue.
See also
* 1963 in art
Events from the year 1963 in art.
Events
* January 8 – Leonardo da Vinci's ''Mona Lisa'' is exhibited in the United States for the first (and only) time, for a period of four weeks, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. During thi ...
Notes
References
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* Lobel, Michael (2002), ''Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art'', Yale University Press, -9780300087628.
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External links
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{{Roy Lichtenstein
1963 paintings
20th-century portraits
Paintings by Roy Lichtenstein
Paintings in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York City)
Portraits by American artists
Works based on DC Comics
Paintings about suicide
Bathing in art
Drowning