''Bedroom at Arles'' is a 1992 oil and Magna on canvas painting 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 the ''

Bedroom in Arles ''Bedroom in Arles'' (french: link=no, La Chambre à Arles; nl, Slaapkamer te Arles) is the title given to each of three similar paintings by 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh's own title for this composi ...

'' series of paintings by

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, 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 ...

. He painted it in July 1992. It is the only quotation of another painting that Lichtenstein did of an interior. It is located on the Fitzhugh Farm in Maryland in the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection.

History

, the painting was part of the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection housed at Fitzhugh Farm located an hour and a half north of Washington, DC. After

Andrew Mellon Andrew William Mellon (; March 24, 1855 – August 26, 1937), sometimes A. W. Mellon, was an American banker, businessman, industrialist, philanthropist, art collector, and politician. From the wealthy Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylva ...

and the original founders, the Meyerhoffs are the largest donors to 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 ...

. The painting was on display at the National Gallery of art from October 1, 2009 through May 2, 2010. Drawings for the painting were donated by Lichtenstein's heirs and the Lichtenstein Foundation to the National Gallery of art in 2005.

Details

Lichtenstein has updated the original work by van Gogh with contemporary chairs and replaced casual shirts with businessmen's white shirts. He uses

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 ...

on one wall and pays homage to

Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

's woodcuts, using wavy lines on the floor. The painting is part of Lichtenstein's early 1990s domestic interiors phase, and is supposedly based on 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 ...

-housed second version rather than the other two versions in the series. Lichtenstein dramatically enlarged the scale of van Gogh's work from 72 cm x 90 cm to 320 cm × 420 cm (130 in × 170 in) and changed the tone from rustic to

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

, using

Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...

-inspired bright yellow

Barcelona chair The Barcelona chair is a chair designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich, for the German Pavilion at the International Exposition of 1929, hosted by Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The chair was first used in Villa Tugendhat, a privat ...

s. In fact, Lichtenstein supposedly worked from a 1993 Vincent van Gogh Calendar that included the Art Institute version. Lichtenstein says that he cleaned up Van Gogh's version and jokes that it would be to Van Gogh's liking, although he notes that the vast contrast between his cartoonish style and the original is in and of itself humorous. He notes that his work is meticulous, while Van Gogh's was spontaneous. He also notes that his translation is no more debasing to the master than were

Pablo 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 ...

's translations of

Diego Velázquez Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...

Critical review

Carol Vogel of ''

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 ...

'' described the work as a "humorous interpretation". Aleid Head describes the color selection, which includes acid yellow and bright turquoise, as garish. According to Diane Waldman of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the painting, which presents a pedestrian perspective, successfully distances his version from the original.

Popular culture

Roy Lichtenstein's painting has been adapted into a 3D installation bedroom on view in 2020 at the

MOCO Museum The Moco Museum (Modern Contemporary Museum) is an independent museum located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the Netherlands and Barcelona, Spain, dedicated to exhibiting Modern art, modern and contemporary art. The museum was founded with the mission ...

. This installation is a response to the A 3D installation of Van Gogh's painting which was presented at the

in 2016 among other locations.

Notes

External links