''Hopeless'' is a 1963 painting with oil paint and acrylic 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 ...
. The painting is in the collection of the
Kunstmuseum Basel
The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the oldest public art collection in the world and is generally considered to be the most important museum of art in Switzerland. It is listed as a heritage site of national significance.
Its lineage extends back to t ...
.
Background
''Hopeless'' is derived from Tony Abruzzo's panel from "Run For Love!" in ''Secret Hearts'', no. 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 ...
.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s a number of American painters began to adapt the imagery and motifs of comic strips. Lichtenstein in 1958 made drawings of comic strip characters.
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.
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 ha ...
''. These works served as prelude to 1964 paintings of innocent "girls next door" in a variety of tenuous emotional states.
[Waldman, p. 113.] "In ''Hopeless'' and ''Drowning Girl'' (which come from the same source), 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)."
[ Several of Lichtenstein's most popular works are his mid-1960s comic images of girls with ]speech balloon
Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons, or word balloons) are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comics, and cartoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing a char ...
s, including ''Drowning Girl'', ''Hopeless'', '' Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But...'', ''In the Car'' and ''We Rose Up Slowly
''We Rose Up Slowly'' is a 1964 painting by Roy Lichtenstein. Materials includes oil and magna on two canvas panels. The painting measures x . It was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. and Centre Pompidou. It is in the collection of the ...
'' that have unheroic subjects who appeal to the male ego. Lichtenstein parodied four Picasso's 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'' (1963) and ''Drowning Girl'' (1963). 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.
Critical commentary
''Hopeless'' is a typical example of Lichtenstein's Romance comics with its teary-eyed face and dejected woman filling the majority of the canvas. Lichtenstein made modifications to the original source using vibrant colors and bold and wavy lines to intensify the emotion of the scene. The work is considered a significant advancement in Lichtenstein's "form, color, composition, and overall power of image." In works like ''Hopeless'', Lichtenstein derived enduring art from a fleeting form of entertainment, while remaining fairly true to the source. This particular source is considered typical melodramatic romance comic scene for that era.
See also
* 1963 in art
Notes
References
*
External links
Kunstmuseum websiteLichtenstein Foundation website
{{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