Name: Seascape II
Brand: Roy Lichtenstein
Rating: 5 (236 reviews)

Track auction value trend

Roy Lichtenstein's Seascape II (signed) from 1965, a mixed media artwork, is estimated to be valued between £9,000 and £13,500. This work has been sold 11 times at auction since its initial sale on 12th March 2004. In the last 12 months, the average selling price was £9,110, across 1 total sale. Over the past five years, the hammer price has ranged from £6,790 in November 2022 to £13,368 in May 2024. The average annual growth rate of this work is 4%. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 100.

Meaning & Analysis

Roy Lichtenstein’s Landscapes, Moonscapes And Seascapes collection constitute a thorough revision of the landscape genre. The vast sequence spans over three decades of the artist’s career and comprises several autonomous groupings. This signed mixed media print was executed in 1965 as part of a limited edition of 100.

Roy Lichtenstein’s intricate landscapes, moonscapes and seascapes works span over thirty years of his career. Time and time again, the artist would return to this innovative sequence to revise the means of landscape painting. As a result, his extensive project features several autonomous portfolios and individual editions.

Seascape II of 1965 is a screenprint and die-cut collage mounted inside a white painted wooden box with plexi front. Highly experimental in its use of materials, the artwork presents a fictitious and humorous waterscape. Stretched out at the bottom and pasted on the vivid blue backdrop lies a body of water constituted entirely out of yellow stencil. The rippled contours mirror the design of the prismatic sky, transforming a naturalistic setting into something entirely artificial.

The resulting scene shows a fully abstracted and static seascape at first glance. Despite a sense of overriding flatness, however, the reflective surface texture provokes sensory associations of motion. Lichtenstein applies plastic sheets of translucent Rowlux to ensure these spatial interplays, producing a playful simulation of movement. In no other adaptation of a genre was Lichtenstein as experimental with materials as he was in his landscape renditions. His quest to create optical illusions and plays on perception continued in his Mirrors and later Reflections series.

Roy Lichtenstein, born in New York, 1923, is a seminal figure in the Pop Art movement, renowned for his comic book and advertisement-inspired artworks. His transformative journey from classical painter to Pop Art pioneer began with his iconic piece, Look Mickey, marking the fusion of painting with pop culture. Lichtenstein’s works, including Whaam!, Drowning Girl, and Crying Girl, blend parody and satire, challenging the boundaries between popular culture and ‘high art’. With over 5,000 pieces to his name, Lichtenstein’s enduring influence resonates in contemporary art, his works celebrated in prestigious institutions worldwide.