Shipboard Girl
Signed Print

Akin to Girl In Mirror and Crying Girl of 1964, Shipboard Girl’s compositionis rendered up close. Lichtenstein isolates his female figure, a blissful blonde woman, presenting her in the context of an incomplete narrative. The scene is infused with underlying tension and only small details, like the life-preserver in the backdrop, hint at the woman’s circumstances. This particular manner of cropped storytelling persisted throughout Lichtenstein's career, peaking in his renowned Nudes of the 1990s.

In Shipboard Girl,Lichtenstein experiments with the fundamentals of the pointillist technique. The work’s abundant coloured Ben Day dots are retained inside defined outlines forming the heroine’s face, the ocean, and the sky. Lichtenstein makes use of bold and primary pigments, utilising vivid yellow for the hair, bright red for the lips, and harsh black for contouring. The calculated pattern signifies tone and texture in an otherwise flat picture plane. In the end, Lichtenstein relies on the viewer’s optical instincts to distinguish his painterly touch amidst the perfected mechanical finishes.