(New York 1923–1997) Two Nudes, 1994, signed, dated rf Lichtenstein 94, coloured relief print on vellum, print AP 11/12 (outside of the edition of 40), on the reverse the work number RL93-3103 inscribed by hand, image size: 105.4 x 88.6 cm, sheet size: 122 x 104.2 cm, printer and pub. Tyler Graphics, Mount Kisco, New York (blind stamp), Corlett 284, framed, (PS)

Provenance:
Kunsthandel Vonderbank, Frankfurt am Main
Private Collection, Germany

“The effects which turn a Lichtenstein into a Lichtenstein have little to do the creation of a uniformly aesthetic style by means of mechanical transformation, but rather with the careful and artistic construction of an, apparently, universal and truthful vernacular, drawn from the real world of comic strips which were even more sleazy and fragmented at that time.” Roy Lichtenstein’s romance pictures are almost exclusively close copies of works by the cartoonists Tony Abruzzo, John Romita and Bernard Sachs. Lichtenstein transformed the adapted images using complicated techniques. His girls in close-up are derived mainly from works by Abruzzo, who had captured them with slightly parted lips in a state of clichéd emotions: eagerness, lust, fear, sadness. Throughout all of his transpositions Lichtenstein used points of various sizes to accentuate the resolution of his figures. (Adam Gopnik, High & Low. Moderne Kunst und Trivialkultur, exhibition catalogue, Munich 1990, p. 147f)