Roy Lichtenstein Quotes about Art

Roy Lichtenstein was a famous American painter, sculptor and printmaker. He is best known for his comic book styled artworks depicting images of popular culture. Famous Roy Lichtenstein artworks include “Drowning Girl”, “Whaam!”, “In the Car”, “Masterpiece”, “Crying Girl”, “Girl with Ball”, “Blam”, “Hopeless”, “Girl with Hair Ribbon”, “Takka Takka” and “Little Big Painting”.

Mini biography: Born Roy Fox Lichtenstein on the 27th of October, 1923 in New York City, New York, United States of America. His mother was Beatrice Werner and his father Milton Lichtenstein was a real estate broker. Lichtenstein married Isabel Wilson in 1949 and they were divorced in 1965. They had two children together: David and Mitchell. He married his second wife Dorothy Herzka in 1968. The artist died on the 29th of September, 1997 in New York City, New York, USA at the age of 73.

List of Famous Roy Lichtenstein Art Quotes

Personally, I feel that in my own work I wanted to look programmed or impersonal but I don’t really believe I am being impersonal when I do it. And I don’t think you could do this. Roy Lichtenstein

In America the biggest is the best. Roy Lichtenstein

I’m interested in what would normally be considered the worst aspects of commercial art. I think it’s the tension between what seems to be so rigid and cliched and the fact that art really can’t be this way. Roy Lichtenstein

One of the things a cartoon does is to express violent emotion and passion in a completely mechanical and removed style. To express this thing in a painterly style would dilute it; the techniques I use are not commercial, they only appear to be commercial – and the ways of seeing and composing and unifying are different and have different ends. Roy Lichtenstein

Color is crucial in painting, but it is very hard to talk about. There is almost nothing you can say that holds up as a generalization, because it depends on too many factors: size, modulation, the rest of the field, a certain consistency that color has with forms, and the statement you’re trying to make. Roy Lichtenstein

I had no program; I always thought each one was the last. But then I’d see something like a way of doing a Monet through just dots that would look like a machine-made Impressionist painting. Roy Lichtenstein

I think we’re much smarter than we were. Everybody knows that abstract art can be art, and most people know that they may not like it, even if they understand there’s another purpose to it. Roy Lichtenstein

Art doesn’t transform. It just plain forms. Roy Lichtenstein

Pop Art is the use of commercial art as a subject matter in painting, I suppose. It was hard to get a painting that was despicable enough so that no one would hang it – everybody was hanging everything. It was almost acceptable to hang a dripping paint rag, everybody was accustomed to this. The one thing everyone hated was commercial art; and apparently they didn’t hate that enough either. Roy Lichtenstein

I’m not really sure what social message my art carries, if any. And I don’t really want it to carry one. I’m not interested in the subject matter to try to teach society anything, or to try to better our world in any way. Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein Self Portrait Painting

More on Famous American Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein

How has Roy Lichtenstein influenced your art making? Is he one of your favorite famous American pop artists? Let us know what you think about Roy Lichtenstein in the comments below.

Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and other Famous American Artists.