Modern Room

Roy Lichtenstein’s Interior artworks 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 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.

A recurring theme in the Interior series is the inclusion of works by many of Lichtenstein’s contemporary artists, such as Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. In Modern Room from 1991,a work by Warhol can be seen in the immediately recognisable Mao print that stares out at the viewer from across the portrayed living room. In the absence of any real figures, the reference also invokes a sense of presence within the otherwise empty interior space. The placement of the cartoonised artwork self-consciously establishes Lichtenstein alongside his peers. Theirs was a contemporary tradition that recognised the artistic potential of the aesthetics of popular culture. It also demonstrates the awareness Lichtenstein had of art history and his crucial position within it.