Living Room
Signed Mixed Media

Lichtenstein’s Interiors of the early 1990s takes the ultimate image of quotidian domesticity as its main subject matter. The intricate collection is rendered in the artist’s characteristic palette of bold primary colours, delineated outlines, and Ben Day dots. Lichtenstein’s Interior prints reflect the artist’s fascination with the paradoxical relationship between fine art and design. The sequence is also a unique manifestation of the varied conceptual ideas and technical skills that the artist acquired in the preceding years culminating in this body of work.

As a distinctive brushstroke motif emerges on the left-hand side of the image, it becomes evident that Lichtenstein’s The Living Room of 1990 is self-referential. The placement of this notorious motif rightfully establishes the artist alongside his contemporaries. Theirs was a creative tradition that recognised the artistic potential of the aesthetics of popular culture. The print also demonstrates the awareness Lichtenstein had of art history, and his position within it, as well as serving as an overt reminder of the artist’s own presence within his work.

Living Room’s mundane interior is transformed through defined contouring, regimented pattern, a flat surface plane and a distorted perspective. By appropriating the pervasive visual style of commercial design, Lichtenstein reinvents his chosen domestic space.