Entablature IX
Entablature IX
Signed Print
Roy Lichtenstein
£3,700-£5,500
$7,500-$11,000 Value Indicator
$6,500-$9,500 Value Indicator
¥35,000-¥50,000 Value Indicator
€4,400-€6,500 Value Indicator
$35,000-$50,000 Value Indicator
¥710,000-¥1,050,000 Value Indicator
$4,550-$7,000 Value Indicator
AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.
There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.
Medium: Planographic print
Edition size: 30
Year: 1976
Size: H 54cm x W 97cm
Signed: Yes
Format: Signed Print
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Auction Results
| Auction Date | Auction House | Location | Hammer Price | Return to Seller | Buyer Paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2024 | Rachel Davis Fine Arts | United States | |||
| March 2024 | Sotheby's Online | United Kingdom | |||
| March 2023 | Sotheby's New York | United States | |||
| March 2023 | Sotheby's New York | United States | |||
| December 2021 | Quittenbaum | Germany | |||
| April 2015 | Bonhams San Francisco | United States | |||
| April 2015 | Bonhams San Francisco | United States |
Meaning & Analysis
Roy Lichtenstein’s highly innovative Entablature series of the 1970s combines complex screen printed and lithographed areas, embossed with glossy and matte metal foils. This limited and signed edition of 30 prints presents a richly textured illusionistic play on 20th century American architecture.
Roy Lichtenstein’s Entablature series of 1976 is an investigation into pattern and repetition. Named for the horizontal structures that rest atop Classical Greek columns, Lichtenstein’s Entablatures convey a distinctly industrialised and American appropriation of architecture. The architectural elements in the Entablature series provide the artist with ready-made designs, similar to the comic strip and advertisement sources he applied in other artistic endeavours.
The pop artist’s preceding interest in the replication of cultural institutions can be detected in his Cathedral series, created only a few years prior. The artist draws on his own photographs capturing the midday facades of various Lower Manhattan institutions. Isolating the culturally coded symbols found on these early 20th century buildings, Lichtenstein’s Entablatures are complete portraits depicting partial subjects.
He presents his chosen motifs in a reductive and repetitive manner, commenting on architecture’s historical preference of uniformity. Additionally, Lichtenstein also directs criticism at Minimalism’s push for impassive artistic expression.
The silver, blue, black and ash grey motifs displayed in Entablature IX are elongated and thin, drawing a physical analogy to the original architecture they were predicated on. The horizontal flow of the ornamentation is also suggestive of such a parallel, alluding to an uninterrupted continuation of the pattern beyond the printed sheet.
