Roy Lichtenstein was born in New York City in 1923. He helped
create Pop Art. Artists who created Pop Art used humor and artistic
skill to create popular works of art. They often used popular
images that people saw everyday and made them into works of
art.
Slide 3
Andy Warhol was another Pop Artist. You may recognize his
artwork below.
Slide 4
Lichtenstein liked to look at bubble-gum wrappers and comic
books. One day he drew a funny cartoon with Mickey Mouse and Donald
Duck. He wanted his painting to look like it was mechanically
printed so he even added little printer dots called Benday
dots.
Slide 5
Roy Lichtenstein went to work making more paintings of ideas he
got from comic books and newspaper ads.
Slide 6
In 1962, Lichtenstein was in one of the first ever Pop Art
exhibits held in New York City. Other Pop Artists were also showing
their work at this time.
Slide 7
At first people thought Lichtenstein just took comic book
images and blew them up to large sizes. But he made careful changes
and the Benday dots are what make his paintings important works of
art.
Slide 8
Benday dots became Roy Lichtensteins trademark. The dot process
was first used as an inexpensive way of printing shades of color
and tints in comic strips. No one had ever made paintings using
Benday dots before Lichtenstein. In comic books, the dots arent
meant to be noticed, but Roy liked the way they looked and made
them an important part of his paintings.