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Six
Still Lifes

In Six Still Lifes, Roy Lichtenstein takes a creative excursion into the well-established still life genre. Lichtenstein captures an assortment of historical and contemporary objects. In this mix of reality and artifice, Lichtenstein points out the traditional didacticism of the genre and offers a witty and confused view of contemporary values.

Six Still Lifes Value (5 Years)

With £124629 in the past 12 months, Roy Lichtenstein's Six Still Lifes series is one of the most actively traded in the market. Prices have varied significantly – from £1174 to £27630 – driven by fluctuations in factors like condition, provenance, and market timing. Over the past 12 months, the average selling price was £13847, with an average annual growth rate of 6.61% across the series.

Six Still Lifes Market value

Annual Sales

Auction Results

ArtworkAuction
Date
Auction
House
Return to
Seller
Hammer
Price
Buyer
Paid
23 Oct 2025
Sotheby's New York
£16,150
£19,000
£27,000
21 Oct 2025
Phillips New York
£9,350
£11,000
£15,000
9 Jul 2025
Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions, Bloomsbury House
£11,050
£13,000
£17,000
14 Aug 2024
Wright
£6,800
£8,000
£11,000
28 Oct 2023
Christie's New York
£11,900
£14,000
£19,000
29 Jun 2022
Blindarte Naples
£10,200
£12,000
£15,000

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Meaning & Analysis

Six Still Lifes demonstrate a graphic, colourful excursion by Lichtenstein into the history and features of the historical still life genre itself. The artist rose to prominence owing to his distinctive and inventive cartoon aesthetic. He was infamous for utilising mass-produced images and printing strategies throughout his oeuvre.

Lichtenstein’s first creative exploration into the principles of still life painting commenced in the early 1970s. His Six Still Lifes of 1974 manifest a colourful excursion into the diverse history of the still life genre. The series offers the artist’s own vivid and modernised version of the venerated artistic tradition. The distinctly figurative Six Still Lifes later inspired Lichtenstein’s abstracted Seven Apple Woodcuts of 1983.

Historically, still lifes would provide the public with allegorical depictions of life versus death, changing cultural values, contrastive social classes and diverse belief systems. The means of still life painting have been exercised since ancient times, offering sublime scenes of prosperity and temporality. Despite its long-standing practice, its particular mode of representation has never ranked highest in the hierarchy of art. In fact, the genre was often dismissed for merely being a creative exercise in composition and texture.

Embracing the decorative qualities of still lifes, Lichtenstein renders his prints according to a pronounced commercial aesthetic. Each composition in this bright six-part sequence is predicated on the legacies of the great modern masters of the 20th century. As such, the Six Still Lifes join the conventions of old master portraits with fauvist colour palettes, abstracted layouts and the striking designs of Lichtenstein’s own fantasy. The series is essentially a collection of still life types.

Lichtenstein captures an assortment of historical and contemporary subject matter in these prints. He inserts objects from his own surroundings, as well artefacts he imagines assisted artists of the past in their creative endeavours. The sequence is composed of symbolic illustrations of social and cultural dynamics and traditional still life depictions posed as graphic adverts. Colourful seaside and landscape settings are coupled with Lichtenstein’s minimalist renditions of classical motifs. The Six Still Lifes swiftly incorporate these appropriated elements, stripped of original gravitas and obscured in their relation to each other.

10 Facts About Lichtenstein’s Six Still Lifes

A small praying figurine stands beside a jug and plate against patterned walls in Lichtenstein’s graphic Pop Art style.

Still Life With Figurine © Roy Lichtenstein 1974

1. Roy Lichtenstein’s Six Still Lifes reimagines the classical still life genre

Lichtenstein’s Six Still Lifes takes inspiration from centuries of still life painting, while subverting the genre’s traditions. Instead of quiet contemplation, the artist injects dynamism and commercial polish, transforming fruit, ceramics, and decorative motifs into graphic compositions that echo modern advertising. The series simultaneously honours and undermines the still life’s moralising tone, replacing reflection on mortality with Pop Art irony and bright colours.

A framed comic-book woman hangs above a table of fruit and drapery, merging still life and Pop glamour.

Still Life With Portrait © Roy Lichtenstein 1974

2. Six Still Lifes strips away meaning to focus on appearance

In classical still lifes, objects often symbolised moral or spiritual ideas, such as a skull for mortality, fruit for abundance or glass for transience. Lichtenstein deliberately empties his arrangements of such symbolism, saying; “my still life paintings have none of those qualities, they just have pictures of certain things.” Instead of using objects to tell moral or symbolic stories, Lichtenstein reduces them to pure visual form, so that lemons, pitchers, and flowers are no longer symbols of life or beauty but simply striking shapes on a flat surface. In doing so, he asks whether art’s power comes from what it represents, or from the way it’s made and seen.

A comic-inspired armchair amid bold blocks of colour and sharp graphic lines.

La Sortie © Roy Lichtenstein 1990

3. In Still Life with Portrait, Lichtenstein’s familiar muse enters the still life

In Still Life with Portrait, Lichtenstein includes one of his familiar comic-book heroines into a classical still-life set-up. The fruit bowl and curtain reference traditional still life compositions, but the framed woman on the wall introduces the world of romance comics and glamour. By treating the muse as an image-within-the-image, Lichtenstein shows how desire, advertising and domestic display overlap.

A stylised interior scene with patterned wallpaper and a blue floor, merging decoration and abstraction.

Wallpaper With Blue Floor Interior © Roy Lichtenstein 1992