0:00:03 > 0:00:05This weekend, London is bracing itself
0:00:05 > 0:00:09for a full-on, eye-popping retina blast of an exhibition.
0:00:12 > 0:00:17More than 120 works worth a combined £1.12 billion
0:00:17 > 0:00:21have travelled the world, clocking up round trips of 8,000 miles apiece
0:00:21 > 0:00:23in order to be here, at Tate Modern,
0:00:23 > 0:00:26for one of the most anticipated shows of the year.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31I'm going to give you an exclusive tour of the exhibition that brings
0:00:31 > 0:00:35together the life's work of one of the superstars of 20th-century art.
0:00:36 > 0:00:38A man who, in my view, is one of
0:00:38 > 0:00:42the most significant and influential artists of his generation.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46He's known as the connoisseur of the comic strip,
0:00:46 > 0:00:49a master of irony, a prophet of popular culture,
0:00:49 > 0:00:51pop art's king of cool,
0:00:51 > 0:00:52Roy Lichtenstein.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04When people think of Lichtenstein,
0:01:04 > 0:01:06they are thinking of the works in this room.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10Paintings that he created in the early '60s based on comic books.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12These are the cartoon works.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15You've got crying girls, you've got images of warfare,
0:01:15 > 0:01:17and of course, all of them characterised
0:01:17 > 0:01:20by Lichtenstein's really distinctive style.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22Very few colours - red, yellow,
0:01:22 > 0:01:24blue and thick, bold black outlines,
0:01:24 > 0:01:26and of course, all of these dots -
0:01:26 > 0:01:28the famous Lichtenstein dot.
0:01:29 > 0:01:31And many of them are very funny.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34"Why, Brad darling, this painting is a masterpiece!
0:01:34 > 0:01:37"My, soon you'll have all of New York clamouring for your work!"
0:01:37 > 0:01:39Of course, the irony was here, it was done in '62.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42Very soon, Lichtenstein DID have New York clamouring for his work.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44He sort of became Brad.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49As well as all of these iconic, familiar pieces,
0:01:49 > 0:01:51there's so much more.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54We're going to get a sense of a very different style of Lichtenstein.
0:01:54 > 0:01:59We'll see how throughout his career, that unmistakable Lichtenstein look
0:01:59 > 0:02:01was applied to so many different subjects,
0:02:01 > 0:02:03from sculptures to nudes.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06Here's a homage to Picasso, Monet.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08There's a Cubist still life.
0:02:08 > 0:02:13Tonight, we'll also discover how he created his signature style.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15We'll meet those close to him...
0:02:15 > 0:02:17I knew Roy better than he knew himself.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20..reveal how '60s America shaped his work...
0:02:21 > 0:02:25..explore the controversy his use of comic book images provoked...
0:02:25 > 0:02:27I find something slightly dishonest about it.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30It seems to be doing a disservice to comic art.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34..and examine his influence on other artists.
0:02:34 > 0:02:36It is one of his greatest paintings, I think.
0:02:36 > 0:02:40I remember the first time I saw it, it took my breath away.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44And we'll ask, was Lichtenstein a pop art genius
0:02:44 > 0:02:46or perhaps a one-trick wonder
0:02:46 > 0:02:50who had a big idea that was so powerful he could never let it go?
0:03:02 > 0:03:06Most people know Lichtenstein for his oversized cartoon paintings
0:03:06 > 0:03:08like his sobbing blondes and Whaam!
0:03:08 > 0:03:11He's often called the architect of pop art
0:03:11 > 0:03:13and we still see his images everywhere,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16in adverts for skin care products or sportswear,
0:03:16 > 0:03:18or even on Valentine cards in gift shops.
0:03:18 > 0:03:21We know when designers are doing a Lichtenstein.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24His style is so bold, so widely reproduced,
0:03:24 > 0:03:26it's immediately recognisable.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29You could say that he's Lichtenstein-ised the world,
0:03:29 > 0:03:32but of course, he didn't arrived fully formed.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Born in Manhattan in 1923,
0:03:38 > 0:03:43Roy Fox Lichtenstein grew up on the Upper West Side of New York,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46a shy but quietly determined character.
0:03:49 > 0:03:51He fought in the Second World War,
0:03:51 > 0:03:53but as a soldier
0:03:53 > 0:03:57rather than flying planes, like the jet pilot heroes he'd later portray.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03His first marriage, producing two sons,
0:04:03 > 0:04:07was as emotionally volatile as the teen romance comic books
0:04:07 > 0:04:08he'd later draw upon.
0:04:08 > 0:04:10It ended in tears.
0:04:12 > 0:04:18Roy spent his late 20s and most of his 30s as a jobbing art teacher,
0:04:18 > 0:04:21churning out somewhat iffy paintings...
0:04:23 > 0:04:26..with no definite style to call his own.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33The art of the day was abstract expressionism,
0:04:33 > 0:04:38an angst-ridden, macho style ruled by the masters of gloom,
0:04:38 > 0:04:41Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning,
0:04:41 > 0:04:46who laid their tortured souls - sploshily - onto canvas...
0:04:48 > 0:04:50..with searing emotional intensity.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58Roy gave it a go,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02but his attempts were a little half-hearted in comparison.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05The violence of feeling required
0:05:05 > 0:05:08didn't come easily to this mild-mannered man.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13So Lichtenstein spent the 1950s
0:05:13 > 0:05:19toying with the bedevilling question of what - and how - to paint.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29Looking at his early abstract expressionist works,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32it's hard to see the makings of a genius.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37One of the points of the exhibition
0:05:37 > 0:05:39is to demonstrate the fact that,
0:05:39 > 0:05:41you know, here was someone
0:05:41 > 0:05:44who was really thrashing about
0:05:44 > 0:05:48in his 20s and 30s, actually,
0:05:48 > 0:05:53trying to work out how to define a style for himself
0:05:53 > 0:05:57within an extraordinary period, actually, late '50s, early '60s,
0:05:57 > 0:06:00you know, post-Second World War, lot going on at that time,
0:06:00 > 0:06:03and these great abstract expressionist figures
0:06:03 > 0:06:07like de Kooning and Pollock sort of
0:06:07 > 0:06:11having an overbearing presence within the New York milieu, particularly.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15These early ones, they are so radically different.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18They stylistically belong to a whole different language,
0:06:18 > 0:06:19visual language, don't they?
0:06:19 > 0:06:24And that transformation seems so abrupt.
0:06:24 > 0:06:27When you think of all those famous cartoon images of the '60s,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30these feel like they were done by somebody completely...
0:06:30 > 0:06:33- a different artist altogether. - The idea of showing these
0:06:33 > 0:06:37is to show exactly how volcanic, in a way, that change was.
0:06:40 > 0:06:42Lichtenstein's breakthrough moment
0:06:42 > 0:06:46came about largely thanks to a cartoon mouse.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49It's the 1960s.
0:06:49 > 0:06:53Lichtenstein is pushing 40 and yet to make it.
0:06:53 > 0:06:55One day, the story goes,
0:06:55 > 0:06:57his young son challenges him to draw
0:06:57 > 0:07:00something as good as a cartoon.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08Lichtenstein had dabbled with cartoon characters before,
0:07:08 > 0:07:11but only in a sketchy, expressionistic way.
0:07:15 > 0:07:19And then, in 1961, he came up with an extraordinary idea.
0:07:19 > 0:07:24He decided to paint cartoon characters simply as they appeared.
0:07:24 > 0:07:28I got the idea of trying, of doing one fairly straight.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33I did it as a kind of idea, you know, "Let's just try this."
0:07:33 > 0:07:34As I was painting this painting,
0:07:34 > 0:07:38I kind of got interested in organising it as a painting, really,
0:07:38 > 0:07:40which I really hadn't intended to do to begin with.
0:07:42 > 0:07:44With his curious oil painting
0:07:44 > 0:07:47of an oversized Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse,
0:07:47 > 0:07:49Roy was onto something.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51There was no denying it.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53I put it up in my studio
0:07:53 > 0:07:56and I couldn't do any other kind of painting.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59Everything I did just looked like mush or something.
0:07:59 > 0:08:03It was just that this thing kept, you know, looking at me.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13Over time, the story of Look Mickey's origins has been retold.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17Lichtenstein later claimed that he was inspired by a bubblegum wrapper.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19In fact, the painting's source
0:08:19 > 0:08:23was a page from a Walt Disney comic from 1960.
0:08:24 > 0:08:27Whatever the truth of its origins, though,
0:08:27 > 0:08:32Look Mickey fired the starting gun on a seriously successful career.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39Well, Gavin, this is it, this is Look Mickey.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41'To discuss Lichtenstein's breakthrough work,
0:08:41 > 0:08:43'I'm joined by artist Gavin Turk,'
0:08:43 > 0:08:48whose own work also draws heavily upon popular culture.
0:08:48 > 0:08:52The picture has all these kind of qualities that then we see later on,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55like the half-tone Ben-Day dot
0:08:55 > 0:08:58and all these flat areas of single colour,
0:08:58 > 0:09:00strong, bold outlines.
0:09:00 > 0:09:02And of course the speech bubble with text in it.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05It looks mechanical, but it is hand-painted.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09- Totally hand-painted.- This points the way because, when you look up close,
0:09:09 > 0:09:12and it's nice seeing that it is not a reproduction but the real thing,
0:09:12 > 0:09:16you can see a lot of preparatory drawing marks which have been left.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19Those are things he needed to get rid of to create that
0:09:19 > 0:09:21impersonal pop blank look.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23He is literally removing himself from the frame.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27He does sign this one but, later on, the signature disappears.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30It's a good theory about that, which is that Donald Duck is
0:09:30 > 0:09:33a surrogate for Roy Lichtenstein.
0:09:33 > 0:09:35He has hooked the big one of a new pop art style.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38You can see because he is looking at his reflection.
0:09:38 > 0:09:42- Who's Mickey Mouse? - Here's the abstract expressionists.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44- Oh, I see.- Can't you tell?!
0:09:44 > 0:09:47How important has Lichtenstein been for you as an artist?
0:09:47 > 0:09:51I think the thing with his work is to get involved with
0:09:51 > 0:09:54appropriation was relatively new and novel.
0:09:54 > 0:10:00I think that now and certainly towards the end of the '80s, it is commonplace.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02It is part of the way that artists work.
0:10:02 > 0:10:09For me, I think the most interesting element of this show, this body
0:10:09 > 0:10:16of work, is how much he has been able to remove himself from the art.
0:10:16 > 0:10:21Yet, when you see the work collectively, you feel him, somehow.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23That's the great Lichtenstein paradox.
0:10:23 > 0:10:25That's why he's very good.
0:10:25 > 0:10:30It may have looked like a provocative joke, but Look Mickey was in part
0:10:30 > 0:10:33a broadside against the earnest excesses
0:10:33 > 0:10:35of abstract impressionism.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38Lichtenstein wasn't the only artist stirring things up.
0:10:38 > 0:10:44A radical new art movement was emerging in the late '50s and early '60s.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47Good evening. The world of pop art.
0:10:47 > 0:10:52The world of film stars, the twist, science fiction.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56A world which you can dismiss if you feel so inclined, of course,
0:10:56 > 0:10:58as being tawdry and second-rate, but a world, all the same,
0:10:58 > 0:11:03in which everybody, to some degree, lives whether we like it or not.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06Pop art emerged in the mid-'50s,
0:11:06 > 0:11:10during America's postwar economic boom.
0:11:10 > 0:11:15I think we're living in a society that, to a large extent, is pop.
0:11:17 > 0:11:23A brazen new art, it shrugged off the tragic burden of the human condition...
0:11:23 > 0:11:27and gorged, instead, in a mass-produced world filling the
0:11:27 > 0:11:32billboards and TV screens of a new wide-eyed generation of consumers.
0:11:37 > 0:11:39It's dealing with the images that have
0:11:39 > 0:11:42come about in the commercial world
0:11:42 > 0:11:49and is using that because there are certain things which are impressive or bold.
0:11:49 > 0:11:54It's that quality of the images that I'm interested in.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00The rules of what art can be made out of
0:12:00 > 0:12:04had been jettisoned.
0:12:04 > 0:12:06Artists broke free from the inhibiting
0:12:06 > 0:12:11influence of abstract expressionism by taking what one artist called
0:12:11 > 0:12:15"the everyday crap of their lives" and sticking it up on the gallery walls.
0:12:17 > 0:12:24The British had started it. Richard Hamilton's consumerist satires.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Peter Blake's homespun paintings.
0:12:27 > 0:12:32But the Americans made it bigger and more daring.
0:12:34 > 0:12:38It was Jasper Johns's grubby painted flag.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41Robert Rauschenberg's even grubbier duvet.
0:12:44 > 0:12:50Lichtenstein declared pop art's victory in paint was his version of Popeye.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54The bearded villain Bluto stands,
0:12:54 > 0:12:57or falls, for abstract expressionism
0:12:57 > 0:12:59and he's taking a right old smack
0:12:59 > 0:13:04to the chops from the pumped-up sailor whose name begins with "pop".
0:13:09 > 0:13:12I think it's quite easy to forget today just how shocking these
0:13:12 > 0:13:14early pop paintings were.
0:13:14 > 0:13:16There was an art critic Max Kozloff
0:13:16 > 0:13:20who reviewed Lichtenstein's first solo show in 1962 and he said,
0:13:20 > 0:13:24"Art galleries are being invaded by the contemptible and
0:13:24 > 0:13:28"pin-headed style of gum-chewers, bobby-soxers and, worse, delinquents."
0:13:28 > 0:13:32Just look what delinquents like Lichtenstein were assaulting galleries with.
0:13:55 > 0:13:56I love the works in this room.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58To me, they are quite stark and monochromatic,
0:13:58 > 0:14:02but they are not particularly what Lichtenstein's popularly known for.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06Why are you particularly drawn to these earlier black-and-white works?
0:14:06 > 0:14:08I think I like them because they are so reduced.
0:14:08 > 0:14:10They are not overtly comic book,
0:14:10 > 0:14:14but they are very mundane objects. He has amplified them.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16He has hand-painted them and I think
0:14:16 > 0:14:20they are bordering on abstraction and I love them for that.
0:14:20 > 0:14:23In this one, it's fantastic
0:14:23 > 0:14:26because he's really critiquing his own technique.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30He is using the magnifying glass to amplify these dots.
0:14:30 > 0:14:32You can see that they're hand-painted.
0:14:32 > 0:14:34You can see the glisten of the paint
0:14:34 > 0:14:37and you realise that it's not a mechanical process.
0:14:37 > 0:14:40Why is he revealing that? He starts using the Ben-Day dot.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42This is from '63 and it's known as being...
0:14:42 > 0:14:45He's trying to imitate mechanically reproduced imagery.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48Yet, here, he is revealing that he does it with his own hand.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52The little dot is being hand wrought and I think...
0:14:52 > 0:14:55He's pointing to that in a very humorous way.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58Compositionally, it's fantastic as well.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02The fact that these things are black and white so they look
0:15:02 > 0:15:04like they've been pulled from black-and-white publications.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06Like the ball of twine over here.
0:15:06 > 0:15:12This has been culled from some trade catalogue. It's been blown up
0:15:12 > 0:15:16to some grand scale. It's so mundane.
0:15:16 > 0:15:18I love the dots and the stripes.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21It's this idea of reducing it to an abstraction.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25How much have you looked to Lichtenstein for inspiration in your own work?
0:15:25 > 0:15:31Perhaps a sidewards glance. He hasn't been a direct influence.
0:15:31 > 0:15:32What about Explosions?
0:15:32 > 0:15:36Well, of course, perhaps he did influence me in that respect.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40He distilled out the explosion as an iconic image.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43Perhaps one of the first people to do that.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46I was certainly looking to that when I did my real explosion.
0:15:46 > 0:15:50I was thinking of this idea of an explosion and its iconography
0:15:50 > 0:15:53and how it has been so ubiquitous throughout centuries.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56Somehow, he crystallised it, he took it from a cartoon
0:15:56 > 0:15:58and made it into 3-D objects.
0:15:58 > 0:16:01The dots have become holes and they cast their own shadows.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05I love this idea of making an explosion into a physical object.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09Do you see Lichtenstein's impact on art in the second half of the 20th century?
0:16:09 > 0:16:12I think what he's taken somehow is the black line
0:16:12 > 0:16:16because he's amplified that and made that into a large thing.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20Now that black line is everywhere. Gilbert & George.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23- There's all kinds of people using the black line.- That's fascinating.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26You think that artists look at his work and go,
0:16:26 > 0:16:29he's using this black line in a way that no-one did before.
0:16:29 > 0:16:36- I can use that myself.- I think it's infused throughout contemporary art.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40Lichtenstein was captivated by the raucous
0:16:40 > 0:16:43culture of America's sell, sell, sell society.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47Eventually, his paintings of disposable,
0:16:47 > 0:16:50everyday advertisements would in turn influenced the sharp-suited
0:16:50 > 0:16:53ad executives of Madison Avenue.
0:16:54 > 0:17:01In the '60s, Americans went big on cigarettes, alcohol and sex
0:17:01 > 0:17:04and an industry sprang into action to sell the more of it -
0:17:04 > 0:17:06advertising.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12Roy would have made a good ad man.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16He instinctively understood how images could be used to sell us things.
0:17:16 > 0:17:22It's made, in a way, partially, a new landscape for us in the way
0:17:22 > 0:17:24of billboards, neon signs.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27This is the landscape that I'm interested in portraying.
0:17:29 > 0:17:34He was fascinated by the tactics of the industry.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37The secrets laid bare by charismatic ad man
0:17:37 > 0:17:41Don Draper on the hit TV show Mad Men.
0:17:41 > 0:17:46What you call "love" was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.
0:17:46 > 0:17:48Is that right?
0:17:48 > 0:17:52Lichtenstein got the power and efficiency of branding.
0:17:52 > 0:17:57He used to loiter in supermarket aisles to study packaging.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02And he created a series of paintings based on adverts.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06But his were simplified.
0:18:06 > 0:18:10He used to isolate his objects against expanses of dots
0:18:10 > 0:18:13or just empty backgrounds.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17And in doing so, of course, he created his own brand -
0:18:17 > 0:18:19Roy Lichtenstein.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28But it's been a two-way street.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31The advertising industry has pilfered
0:18:31 > 0:18:33the Lichtenstein brand in return.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37Inadvertently, he's helped to sell us everything
0:18:37 > 0:18:40from washing-up liquid to acne cream.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46I'm fascinated by the way that Lichtenstein,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49who drew so extensively on pop culture in the '60s,
0:18:49 > 0:18:52is now fully reintegrated into popular culture today.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55With me to discuss that, I've got the critic Paul Morley
0:18:55 > 0:18:58and former ad man Roger Mavity. Roger, can we start with you?
0:18:58 > 0:19:02Do you see Lichtenstein's impact writ large upon advertising now?
0:19:02 > 0:19:04I see a massive amount of advertising
0:19:04 > 0:19:07which rips off the Lichtenstein look and feel.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10I see none of it which is remotely memorable.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13There's almost this sort of hall of mirrors effect going on,
0:19:13 > 0:19:16whereby he was imitating advertising of his own era
0:19:16 > 0:19:19and ad men who are not inspired now are imitating him.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22There's a kind of nostalgic effect going on, don't you think?
0:19:22 > 0:19:24I think pop culture and advertisers
0:19:24 > 0:19:27have responded to the surface element of it
0:19:27 > 0:19:30and the way of achieving a very abrupt image,
0:19:30 > 0:19:32a strong image, very easily, if you like.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36He was doing something that was a lot more troubling and profound
0:19:36 > 0:19:38than merely surface.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41I'm fascinated by the way he's been reincorporated into popular culture now so that...
0:19:41 > 0:19:43He's cannibalised popular culture.
0:19:43 > 0:19:45- I agree.- It's gone into the realm of fine art,
0:19:45 > 0:19:48- and then it's come back into pop culture.- He's made...
0:19:48 > 0:19:50taken low art and made high art out of it
0:19:50 > 0:19:53and ad men have taken high art and made low art out of it,
0:19:53 > 0:19:56so it's a kind of creative recycling.
0:19:56 > 0:19:59Was it a glory time for advertising, though, in the early '60s?
0:19:59 > 0:20:01Is part of the success of these paintings because the ads
0:20:01 > 0:20:04they were based on were somehow intrinsically very powerful?
0:20:04 > 0:20:07I think it goes deeper than just the advertising.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10At a time when the American economy was exploding after the war,
0:20:10 > 0:20:13advertising was incredibly powerful in driving that.
0:20:13 > 0:20:20It was a culture which was becoming... preoccupied with consumption.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25You know, Mad Men satirised that set of values and so does Lichtenstein.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28If you look at the banality of the pedal bin, for example,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31the fact that it is very banal is clearly an important part
0:20:31 > 0:20:33of why the image works.
0:20:33 > 0:20:35Lichtenstein was telling us that,
0:20:35 > 0:20:40in a way, pop culture actually understands and defines
0:20:40 > 0:20:43and describes the society it operates in better than art.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46In a funny sort of way, he was advertising himself as well.
0:20:46 > 0:20:48- He was creating his own brand. - That's the key point.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51The brand he's creating here is not the brand of the bin,
0:20:51 > 0:20:55or whatever that newspaper ad was for this spray can, or for the ring, it's himself.
0:20:55 > 0:20:57And that's the great triumph of Lichtenstein.
0:20:57 > 0:21:01He's finding, in all this kind of throwaway cliched culture, his own originality.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04- And a weird love of painting as well, oddly enough.- Yeah.
0:21:04 > 0:21:06It's about how you look at things.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09But I think he is also personally very beguiled
0:21:09 > 0:21:12by the way the mass media were looking at things
0:21:12 > 0:21:15and the crudeness of reproduction where you can actually see the dots,
0:21:15 > 0:21:19to him, is not a limitation at all, it's actually part of the charm of it
0:21:19 > 0:21:21and he's deliberately exaggerated that.
0:21:21 > 0:21:25So he is rather in love with the banal and almost fetishising it.
0:21:34 > 0:21:37Of course, Lichtenstein wasn't the only one experimenting
0:21:37 > 0:21:40with cartoons and commercial imagery in the early '60s.
0:21:40 > 0:21:44His new pop paintings came as a nasty surprise to another artist
0:21:44 > 0:21:47working in the same town at the same time.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59There was a real buzz around pop art in New York in the early '60s.
0:21:59 > 0:22:06- And- the- dealer that every artist wanted to court was Leo Castelli.
0:22:06 > 0:22:12Lichtenstein had taken his work to Castelli's right-hand man Ivan Karp.
0:22:12 > 0:22:14I said, I remember, something like,
0:22:14 > 0:22:17"I'm not sure you're allowed to do things like this."
0:22:19 > 0:22:22Guided by the perverse principle that if you hated it,
0:22:22 > 0:22:24it was probably great,
0:22:24 > 0:22:27Castelli had a hunch that this unacceptable art
0:22:27 > 0:22:29was worth holding on to.
0:22:31 > 0:22:36One day, a little-known commercial illustrator visited the gallery
0:22:36 > 0:22:38and was horrified when he saw Lichtenstein's cartoon paintings.
0:22:41 > 0:22:45An artist and a friend of his came in and I took out the painting
0:22:45 > 0:22:48of the beach ball girl of Roy's and showed it to them
0:22:48 > 0:22:52and they were enthralled. One of them, who had a mop of grey hair
0:22:52 > 0:22:55and a very mottled complexion, said to me,
0:22:55 > 0:22:59"I'm doing work very, very much like this!
0:22:59 > 0:23:02"Would you come to my studio and look at it?"
0:23:02 > 0:23:03It was a man named Andy Warhol.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06Unbeknownst to each other, Warhol and Lichtenstein
0:23:06 > 0:23:10had both been painting cartoons at exactly the same time.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14But Castelli chose Lichtenstein.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20Warhol feared that without Castelli's patronage,
0:23:20 > 0:23:22he'd look like a follower.
0:23:23 > 0:23:28He turned his back on Superman and took up soup cans instead.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32So glamorous.
0:23:32 > 0:23:33Take one.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41So having claimed the territory for his own,
0:23:41 > 0:23:45Lichtenstein got going on his famous cartoon paintings,
0:23:45 > 0:23:49filled with soppy scenes of teen romance and the melodrama of war.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54In all of these paintings, he was inspired by comic books
0:23:54 > 0:23:58and he shows submariners or pilots or soldiers quite grim-faced,
0:23:58 > 0:24:01quite stern, in the height of combat. Here, he's thinking,
0:24:01 > 0:24:04he's concentrating hard on his sights and saying...
0:24:10 > 0:24:13It's all quite tongue-in-cheek.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16And you can see the big sound effect at the bottom.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18It's almost as though, in paintings like this,
0:24:18 > 0:24:20he's kind of satirising gender stereotypes
0:24:20 > 0:24:24that you'd find in the media, as though, in mid-20th century America,
0:24:24 > 0:24:26it was as if this was how you had to be a man.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29But, of course, he's sending it up. It's tongue-in-cheek.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32At the same time, he was working on another series
0:24:32 > 0:24:35called the romance paintings, also based on comic books,
0:24:35 > 0:24:38this time, comics that were appealing to adolescent girls.
0:24:42 > 0:24:44They're about romance, they're about love,
0:24:44 > 0:24:47about women trying to find a man and bag him so they could get married.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49But there were a lot of obstacles in the way.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53And the characters in Lichtenstein's paintings are the antithesis
0:24:53 > 0:24:56of all of those soldiers in the war paintings,
0:24:56 > 0:24:58because, here, they're very passive.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03They hesitate a lot, they mumble, they stumble,
0:25:03 > 0:25:06they sometimes leave these long pauses on the phone,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09they look a little bit pathetic, even if they're quite beautiful.
0:25:09 > 0:25:11But the similarity between them is that in both cases
0:25:11 > 0:25:14you have this hot subject matter -
0:25:14 > 0:25:16the frenzy of warfare...
0:25:18 > 0:25:21..the passion and emotional volatility of puppy love,
0:25:21 > 0:25:23but a very cool and detached,
0:25:23 > 0:25:26almost ironic way in which those themes are painted.
0:25:30 > 0:25:35People often think that Lichtenstein himself seems to be apart
0:25:35 > 0:25:38from these paintings, almost invisible.
0:25:38 > 0:25:40But I wonder whether that's right.
0:25:40 > 0:25:42I suspect if we knew more about Lichtenstein the man,
0:25:42 > 0:25:45we might be able to see the stamp of his personality
0:25:45 > 0:25:47on paintings like these.
0:25:51 > 0:25:55Dorothy Lichtenstein was married to Roy for nearly 30 years.
0:25:55 > 0:25:59She's made a special trip over from New York for the exhibition.
0:25:59 > 0:26:01I'm really, really thrilled to meet you
0:26:01 > 0:26:05because I think it's safe to say that you knew Roy Lichtenstein better than anyone.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08I knew Roy better than he knew himself.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11Ah, excellent, well, then, you are the person to talk to, for sure.
0:26:11 > 0:26:15- When did you first meet? - I met Roy in 1964.
0:26:15 > 0:26:19I was running an art gallery.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23We did an exhibition called The Great American Supermarket
0:26:23 > 0:26:27and so we asked Andy Warhol and Roy
0:26:27 > 0:26:31if they would put an image on a shopping bag for us
0:26:31 > 0:26:34instead of doing a poster, and they both agreed,
0:26:34 > 0:26:37and I met Roy when he came in to sign the shopping bags.
0:26:37 > 0:26:39I'd love to get a sense from you...
0:26:39 > 0:26:41I mean, we're looking here
0:26:41 > 0:26:44at these tremendously famous pictures he created
0:26:44 > 0:26:48and I'd love to get a sense of the man behind these images.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51I've read that he could be quite reserved and shy.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54- Is that...?- Well, he was reserved,
0:26:54 > 0:27:00and a bit shy. Except when it came to his paintings, I guess.
0:27:01 > 0:27:08These images of romance and war in comic books,
0:27:08 > 0:27:14it is what Americans of a certain generation grew up with.
0:27:14 > 0:27:18- They were iconic. Roy did not read comic books as a child.- Didn't he?
0:27:18 > 0:27:22No, he was the generation before comic books...
0:27:22 > 0:27:25became so ubiquitous.
0:27:25 > 0:27:29Very often, people say these are quite cool
0:27:29 > 0:27:32and detached paintings with a level of irony.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36Do you think maybe you can read them in terms of his life,
0:27:36 > 0:27:40your life together? Are you sometimes the blonde that appears?
0:27:40 > 0:27:43- I know that people have tried to say that.- I hope so.
0:27:43 > 0:27:48Roy really loved women. He was more comfortable with women.
0:27:48 > 0:27:53He had more women friends than he had close male friends,
0:27:53 > 0:27:58although he had a couple of really close male friends,
0:27:58 > 0:28:00so I think he was in awe of women,
0:28:00 > 0:28:04and of course he was in World War II,
0:28:04 > 0:28:07he was drafted towards the end of the war, and was in Germany,
0:28:07 > 0:28:14and so this idea of a war hero, a beautiful woman in love,
0:28:14 > 0:28:20isn't it every heterosexual's fantasy?
0:28:20 > 0:28:24Yes, but it kind of came true in his case, some people say.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28There is the painting behind you, Masterpiece, in which it is
0:28:28 > 0:28:31a wish-fulfilment painting in a way, but it did become true,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34he did become the successful artist who married the glamorous blonde.
0:28:34 > 0:28:40Well, he did, and even about that he kept a sense of irony.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44He used to say, "Soon, somebody is going to be shaking me
0:28:44 > 0:28:47"and saying, 'It's time for your pills.' "
0:28:47 > 0:28:50- The whole thing a dream.- Exactly.
0:28:50 > 0:28:54Thinking about him as the man behind the painting,
0:28:54 > 0:28:58often he is referencing great 20th-century art history,
0:28:58 > 0:29:03Mondrian, Picasso, did he himself put himself in the same category?
0:29:03 > 0:29:09Well, not publicly. Let's put it that way.
0:29:09 > 0:29:14But I think he did, and actually I think every artist...
0:29:14 > 0:29:20no artist thinks of themselves as second-tier, they always think
0:29:20 > 0:29:23they will be discovered, even if it is after death.
0:29:23 > 0:29:25But I think he did,
0:29:25 > 0:29:31and I think he was kind of matching his talents with theirs.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34What do you feel is Lichtenstein's legacy?
0:29:34 > 0:29:39Well, I think he was one of the artists that really opened
0:29:43 > 0:29:47the idea of art for generations to follow.
0:29:47 > 0:29:54To do a cartoon, even Roy said when he did the first cartoon painting,
0:29:54 > 0:29:58he had to get beyond the level of his own taste,
0:29:58 > 0:30:00but also that he could not go back.
0:30:00 > 0:30:02I mean, once he had done that,
0:30:02 > 0:30:06there was no way you could go back and do what he had been doing.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09I think people began to think if you can paint something that
0:30:09 > 0:30:14looks like it came out of a comic book, what can't you do?
0:30:17 > 0:30:22People often get fixated by the noisy attention-grabbing
0:30:22 > 0:30:24subject matter of Lichtenstein's paintings.
0:30:24 > 0:30:28In fact, it is quite easy to overlook the quiet,
0:30:28 > 0:30:31meticulous craftsmanship that went into making them.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43From the moment Lichtenstein ditched the histrionics of abstract expressionism,
0:30:43 > 0:30:49his marks became deliberately impersonal, cold and flat.
0:30:49 > 0:30:52"I want to hide the record of my hand," he said,
0:30:52 > 0:30:55"and make my painting look as if it has been programmed."
0:30:55 > 0:30:59Which is why he imitated the so-called Ben-Day dot,
0:30:59 > 0:31:03a commercial printing method for producing shade and depth.
0:31:07 > 0:31:14I was interested in dots because they had no sensitivity.
0:31:14 > 0:31:18It is just, this is red, 50% red.
0:31:18 > 0:31:22It is like some sort of mathematical problem.
0:31:25 > 0:31:30In order to make his paintings deliberately mechanical
0:31:30 > 0:31:35and un-painterly, he used a stencil to apply the dots.
0:31:41 > 0:31:45He had already devised an ingenious rotating easel, allowing him
0:31:45 > 0:31:50to spin canvases to concentrate on composition without letting
0:31:50 > 0:31:52the subject matter get in the way.
0:31:52 > 0:31:58With characteristic Lichtenstein irony,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01his machine-like results are actually handmade.
0:32:16 > 0:32:19Lichtenstein always said he wants to hide
0:32:19 > 0:32:22the record of his hand, but what is great about seeing his paintings
0:32:22 > 0:32:26up close is it is a reminder of how hand-painted they actually are.
0:32:26 > 0:32:31You can see where he's painted the black outline as the final part of the painting.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35You sense suddenly the way that the words are almost irrelevant,
0:32:35 > 0:32:38they are just formal components of the picture, this white
0:32:38 > 0:32:42and black balancing the white and black down here.
0:32:42 > 0:32:46One of the most distinctive things about it is the use of all these dots.
0:32:46 > 0:32:50This woman looks like she has a particularly virulent skin complaint.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52This rash right over her face,
0:32:52 > 0:32:54it has a very particular pictorial effect.
0:32:54 > 0:32:56It really flattens the image,
0:32:56 > 0:32:59emphasising the surface of the painting.
0:32:59 > 0:33:01It is deliberately absurd because, of course,
0:33:01 > 0:33:05there was something absurd about Lichtenstein taking a small
0:33:05 > 0:33:10panel from a comic strip and blowing it up into a painting this gigantic.
0:33:11 > 0:33:15I go through comic books looking for material which seems to hold
0:33:15 > 0:33:19possibilities for paintings with both a visual impact
0:33:19 > 0:33:23and in the impact of the written message.
0:33:23 > 0:33:24Strictly for research,
0:33:24 > 0:33:29Roy Lichtenstein pored over plenty of sappy romance weeklies
0:33:29 > 0:33:34and exciting adventure comics with titles like Secret Hearts
0:33:34 > 0:33:36and All-American Men Of War.
0:33:36 > 0:33:43I try to look for something that says something mysterious or absurd.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47He used to cut out panels that caught his eye from these
0:33:47 > 0:33:5312-cents-a-pop publications, blow them up, and create huge paintings
0:33:53 > 0:33:57that would one day fetch tens of millions of dollars.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03Guess which is Roy's.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16So, how should we judge them?
0:34:16 > 0:34:21As homage to the unsung talents of comic art?
0:34:21 > 0:34:27Why did you ask that? What do you know about my image duplicator?
0:34:27 > 0:34:29Or plain old plagiarism?
0:34:35 > 0:34:39I know that my work has been accused of looking like the things that
0:34:39 > 0:34:43I copy, and it certainly does look like the things that I copy.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47I believe I'm transforming this into something else,
0:34:47 > 0:34:50or at least that I'm forming art.
0:34:50 > 0:34:52There is no way to prove this.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55One man with strong views on Lichtenstein's habit
0:34:55 > 0:34:59of borrowing comic book imagery is Dave Gibbons,
0:34:59 > 0:35:03the artist behind the acclaimed graphic novel Watchmen.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06I really want to find out from you, Dave, what you think about this
0:35:06 > 0:35:09idea that Lichtenstein was accused of being a plagiarist.
0:35:09 > 0:35:11There was a famous article that came out
0:35:11 > 0:35:15and I think the headline was "pop artists or copycats?"
0:35:15 > 0:35:16I would say copycat.
0:35:16 > 0:35:20In music, for instance, you can't just whistle somebody else's tune
0:35:20 > 0:35:23or perform somebody else's tune, no matter how badly,
0:35:23 > 0:35:26without somehow crediting or giving payment to the original artist.
0:35:26 > 0:35:31Just to say, "This is Whaam! by Roy Lichtenstein after Irv Novick."
0:35:31 > 0:35:36Why don't we look at some of Irv Novick's art? Because I managed to pick this up.
0:35:36 > 0:35:39This is one of the All-American Men Of War comic books.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43- Someone on the team picked this up for £5.95.- Bargain.- It is a bargain.
0:35:43 > 0:35:47This painting, if it ever came on the market, would be going for tens of millions of pounds.
0:35:47 > 0:35:49This is the source.
0:35:50 > 0:35:54I would say to you, Dave, that he has not only transformed it,
0:35:54 > 0:35:57he seriously improved it.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00- I would disagree. - Yes, I thought you might.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03I mean this, to me, looks flat. It's flat and abstracted,
0:36:03 > 0:36:07to the point that to my eyes, it's confusing,
0:36:07 > 0:36:11whereas the original has got a three-dimensional quality to it.
0:36:11 > 0:36:13It's got a spontaneity to it.
0:36:13 > 0:36:18It's got an excitement to it and a way of involving the viewer that this one lacks.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22For instance, the explosion here to me just looks like a collection of flat shapes,
0:36:22 > 0:36:26whereas the explosion in the original, because there are no lines in there, because it's all
0:36:26 > 0:36:31left to colour, seems to have, to me, much more the quality of an explosion.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34I think the explosion in the original looks a bit weak and weaselly and measly
0:36:34 > 0:36:38and not particularly effective. From me, this, as a painting,
0:36:38 > 0:36:43not considered as a piece of comic book art, but as a piece of art, is far more successful than if this had
0:36:43 > 0:36:46been reproduced and placed on a wall, for a number of reasons.
0:36:46 > 0:36:50He's got rid of extraneous details like the planes on either side. He's removed the mountain,
0:36:50 > 0:36:52which I think is an unfortunate compositional device.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55He's made the balance of the explosion on the right
0:36:55 > 0:36:59and the plane much clearer. It is much more balanced. They're more equal.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02I think those are several compelling reasons why formally,
0:37:02 > 0:37:05this is a much more successful image than the source.
0:37:05 > 0:37:09Well, I think there's a fundamental error in what you're saying,
0:37:09 > 0:37:12which is that, in fact, a comic book is not anything to do with a single image.
0:37:12 > 0:37:15It's to do with a series of images and it's
0:37:15 > 0:37:18the images in juxtaposition to one another which give them their power.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21This is like a quotation.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25- This is like three notes out of the middle of a symphony. - Of course. OK, fine.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29I agree with that. But this, we have to think of as a painting.
0:37:29 > 0:37:32Does it work as a piece of art in its own right, as a painting?
0:37:32 > 0:37:35If it simply imitated this panel here, I'm suggesting,
0:37:35 > 0:37:38I think that it wouldn't work as such an effective
0:37:38 > 0:37:40painting as in fact it does.
0:37:40 > 0:37:46I bet you if that Irv Novick panel was shown that size, that it
0:37:46 > 0:37:49would have a huge graphic power of its own.
0:37:49 > 0:37:53It would have a cohesiveness which this... This, to me, isn't cohesive.
0:37:53 > 0:37:56This, to me, everything interesting about that image, which is
0:37:56 > 0:38:00a representation of three-dimensional space, of a real event happening.
0:38:00 > 0:38:02This, to me, is just flattened. This, to me looks...
0:38:02 > 0:38:04It's a piece of abstract painting.
0:38:04 > 0:38:06He said he wanted to hide the record of his hand.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09For him, he's bouncing off a previous generation of artists.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11Abstract painters,
0:38:11 > 0:38:13people like Jackson Pollock who were all about gesture, expression.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16He's saying, "I want it to appear flat and impersonal
0:38:16 > 0:38:19"and mechanical because that is the world I live in.
0:38:19 > 0:38:22"And in fact, that's what I want to get across."
0:38:22 > 0:38:24So everything you are saying, I think, you could argue,
0:38:24 > 0:38:27plays into his hands. I don't know. Have I convinced you at all?
0:38:27 > 0:38:29I'm afraid you haven't convinced me at all,
0:38:29 > 0:38:32you know, from the point of view that I come from.
0:38:32 > 0:38:35I find there's something slightly dishonest about it.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38There is something that's kind of trying to be ironic,
0:38:38 > 0:38:41but I think it doesn't actually work.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45It seems to be doing a disservice to comic art, because of that.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48Although Lichtenstein's work is so phenomenally popular,
0:38:48 > 0:38:51- you could argue that he's on the side of comics.- Yes.
0:38:51 > 0:38:55I mean, I'd have to agree to try and find a point of harmony on it.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58In the '60s, '70s, for a short while,
0:38:58 > 0:39:01the mighty Marvel comics group rechristened itself Marvel
0:39:01 > 0:39:07Pop Art Productions because stuff like this, in the eyes of culture,
0:39:07 > 0:39:10had kind of said, "Hey, these aren't just comics for kids.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13"These could be the next big artistic wave."
0:39:13 > 0:39:16- It lasted about three or four months, I think. - Be honest with me, Dave.
0:39:16 > 0:39:20Is there any part of you which is a bit narked by the fact
0:39:20 > 0:39:24that I could buy this for £5.95 and clearly, if this ever came onto
0:39:24 > 0:39:27the market, it would be worth tens and tens of millions of pounds?
0:39:27 > 0:39:32That's doesn't nark me at all. This is worth, to me, far more than that.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35What, for real? If you were offered this, you wouldn't have this.
0:39:35 > 0:39:37- You'd take the Irv Novick original?- Absolutely.
0:39:39 > 0:39:40Bud.
0:39:42 > 0:39:46If you think Lichtenstein's pop paintings are contentious today,
0:39:46 > 0:39:48just imagine their impact, how strange
0:39:48 > 0:39:52and scandalous they must have appeared, when they first landed in Britain.
0:39:56 > 0:39:57London, 1968.
0:39:59 > 0:40:04And Whaam! The man once described as America's worst artist comes to town
0:40:04 > 0:40:07for an important solo exhibition at the Tate Gallery.
0:40:10 > 0:40:13It's the first time the gallery has devoted a show to a living
0:40:13 > 0:40:16American artist, and it's packed with Brits
0:40:16 > 0:40:19who want to see what all the fuss is about.
0:40:23 > 0:40:28Two years earlier, the Tate had bought Whaam! for nearly £4,000,
0:40:28 > 0:40:31causing a bust-up between the trustees.
0:40:31 > 0:40:36So unsurprisingly, a whole gallery full of Lichtensteins
0:40:36 > 0:40:38was bound to detonate a response.
0:40:38 > 0:40:41# Hey, hey, goodbye. #
0:40:41 > 0:40:44The whole of this exhibition is pulling something over
0:40:44 > 0:40:47everybody and, judging by the average age of the people around,
0:40:47 > 0:40:49they're just not sophisticated enough to notice.
0:40:49 > 0:40:51- I like the one looking in the mirror.- Why?
0:40:51 > 0:40:55- Because the dots are bigger, I suppose.- Don't like it.
0:40:55 > 0:40:57I don't like it at all.
0:40:57 > 0:41:02It's a comment, I suppose, on this age in which we live.
0:41:02 > 0:41:05And I'm not sure yet whether it's a very critical comment.
0:41:08 > 0:41:09The show was a sell-out.
0:41:09 > 0:41:13The American who did big comics had made a massive impact.
0:41:18 > 0:41:19Now, Richard Morphet,
0:41:19 > 0:41:23you were an assistant curator at the Tate in the '60s.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26It's amazing to think that this is now one of the big crowd pullers
0:41:26 > 0:41:29at the Tate but, when it was bought in '66,
0:41:29 > 0:41:31it was the cause of all this infighting.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33Yes, infighting not amongst the staff but, it seems,
0:41:33 > 0:41:35amongst the trustees.
0:41:35 > 0:41:38The older generation found this almost completely
0:41:38 > 0:41:40unacceptable as a kind of art.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44I mean, they basically thought that it wasn't dealing with serious matters.
0:41:44 > 0:41:48It wasn't dealing with the kind of humane,
0:41:48 > 0:41:54subtle preoccupations that they thought should be at the heart
0:41:54 > 0:41:57of art as well as it being such outrageous subject matter.
0:41:57 > 0:41:58So for them,
0:41:58 > 0:42:02- it was an affront to everything that art was supposed to be?- It was.
0:42:02 > 0:42:06They thought that popular and commercial things were degraded
0:42:06 > 0:42:10and really would be polluting fine art.
0:42:11 > 0:42:15When one met people, if you went out to supper with friends
0:42:15 > 0:42:18and they learned that you worked at the Tate,
0:42:18 > 0:42:22they immediately - this is in 1966 - raised the issue of Whaam!
0:42:22 > 0:42:26and they said, "It's outrageous that the Tate should buy something
0:42:26 > 0:42:30"which is simply a clipping from a strip comic."
0:42:30 > 0:42:33This was bought by the Tate in 1966. Big fuss.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37Had that controversy abated at all by the time of the big
0:42:37 > 0:42:41Lichtenstein exhibition at the Tate two years later in '68?
0:42:41 > 0:42:45Among certain people, it had not and it went on for years.
0:42:45 > 0:42:47But in fact, within those two years,
0:42:47 > 0:42:52a huge momentum of enthusiasm for Lichtenstein's work had built up,
0:42:52 > 0:42:56so the exhibition was an enormous success, you know.
0:42:56 > 0:42:58There were kind of crowd problems.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02And, you know, young people in general were exhilarated by it.
0:43:02 > 0:43:07And his work simply took its place in the story of art and that
0:43:07 > 0:43:08was a done deal, as it were.
0:43:11 > 0:43:14Lichtenstein's comic book paintings are what he is most famous for.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17But he created them within a period of five years.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20He still had 30 years of his career ahead of him.
0:43:23 > 0:43:27Once Lichtenstein had fine-tuned his look - the hard outlines,
0:43:27 > 0:43:31primary colours, and lots of dots,
0:43:31 > 0:43:33he stuck with it.
0:43:33 > 0:43:35It wasn't broke.
0:43:35 > 0:43:36Neither was he.
0:43:39 > 0:43:45When he waved goodbye to fighter jet pilots and sobbing girls in 1965,
0:43:45 > 0:43:52he looked to his future and wondered, "What else can I cover in dots?"
0:43:54 > 0:43:58He turned to the great modern masters.
0:44:00 > 0:44:02He did nudes.
0:44:04 > 0:44:05Sculpture.
0:44:05 > 0:44:10The idea of doing it in a ceramic and in three dimensions was particularly interesting to me,
0:44:10 > 0:44:14because to put these half-tone dots and these same two-dimensional
0:44:14 > 0:44:17symbols on an actual three-dimensional surface
0:44:17 > 0:44:19and to make a cartooned image,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23the symbols of which seem to be associated, let's say, with a flat,
0:44:23 > 0:44:28working two-dimensional surface, was something that interested me quite a bit.
0:44:29 > 0:44:30And brushstrokes,
0:44:30 > 0:44:32an ironic wink towards
0:44:32 > 0:44:39the wild emotion of abstract expressionism, whose intimidating influence he had managed to escape.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42And finally, a series of Chinese landscapes.
0:44:42 > 0:44:46The dots now more subtle in a slow tonal fade,
0:44:46 > 0:44:49suggesting delicate mists.
0:44:49 > 0:44:52Sometimes people say, well, you know, he didn't change.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55He was kind of, like, more of one line.
0:44:55 > 0:44:57And I really think just the opposite.
0:44:57 > 0:45:01I think, "My gosh, look at all the different approaches
0:45:01 > 0:45:02"he made to his work,
0:45:02 > 0:45:06"going from very kind of modernist style paintings to
0:45:06 > 0:45:10"the different type of cartoon images
0:45:10 > 0:45:13"to the two-dimensional sculptures but a very wide variety."
0:45:27 > 0:45:30Lichtenstein's well-known for engaging with low culture,
0:45:30 > 0:45:33but something that's perhaps a little less familiar is
0:45:33 > 0:45:36that, in the early '60s when he began his comic book paintings,
0:45:36 > 0:45:39he also did a series that were based on art.
0:45:41 > 0:45:45This is a Lichtenstein version of a Picasso.
0:45:45 > 0:45:48He's taken his source, he's stamped it with his own identity
0:45:48 > 0:45:50and, in this room, you can see he's done that several times.
0:45:50 > 0:45:52In this series from later in the '60s,
0:45:52 > 0:45:55he's dealing with Monet's famous series of Rouen cathedral.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00Lichtenstein called these works his "idiot versions"
0:46:00 > 0:46:02because they do seem slightly moronic,
0:46:02 > 0:46:06half-witted representations of beautiful other paintings,
0:46:06 > 0:46:10how it would be if it was reproduced endlessly, mashed up, mauled.
0:46:10 > 0:46:11It's almost quite aggressive.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14There's another idiot version of a Mondrian behind,
0:46:14 > 0:46:17which lends itself a little more closely to Lichtenstein's style.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21But, the thing is, he was much more respectful of art history
0:46:21 > 0:46:23than people often give him credit for.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26He's always fundamentally engaged with painting.
0:46:26 > 0:46:30He once said, "The things that I have apparently parodied,
0:46:30 > 0:46:32"I actually admire."
0:46:38 > 0:46:44For designer and architect Ron Arad, Lichtenstein's parodies are never straightforward.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47There's always more than one layer.
0:46:49 > 0:46:52This is...like you look at it and no-one needs to tell you this
0:46:52 > 0:46:55is a Lichtenstein because it has all the hallmarks.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58This is done very late, like in the '90s.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03But, yet, it's not as if he's a one-trick pony...
0:47:04 > 0:47:08..it keeps producing the same stuff, it's always a new idea.
0:47:08 > 0:47:11And in this case, it's the reflection.
0:47:11 > 0:47:13I mean, we're seeing a Picasso, yes.
0:47:13 > 0:47:16It's difficult to read this, it's a complicated image.
0:47:16 > 0:47:18When you see paintings in museums,
0:47:18 > 0:47:22- and there's the reflective glass in front of...- Oh, is that what this is?
0:47:22 > 0:47:26- That's what it is.- Ah! - That's what I think it is.- Of course.
0:47:26 > 0:47:29It's a Picasso in the frame
0:47:29 > 0:47:32and there's a pane of glass in front of it that disturbs us.
0:47:32 > 0:47:37And it makes enjoyment out of the interference.
0:47:37 > 0:47:42The reflection is the enemy of museums and galleries.
0:47:44 > 0:47:48This is, "It's not the enemy. If you can't beat them, join them."
0:47:53 > 0:47:57Also in this room, we've got all of the sculptures too.
0:47:57 > 0:48:03It has Picasso and it has the Cubists and it has Matisse there
0:48:03 > 0:48:07- and it has Lichtenstein.- I feel like this is a real distillation of form.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10That's what he's doing. It's an interrogation, if you like, a cliche.
0:48:10 > 0:48:12He's saying, "What is the minimum I can get away with?"
0:48:12 > 0:48:17I don't think it's about getting away, I think he just felt like doing that.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20For me, it looks like there's a freedom to try
0:48:20 > 0:48:25and experiment that he earned with his work
0:48:25 > 0:48:32and all the experiments are done within a look that we grew to accept.
0:48:32 > 0:48:38All these have a lot of "what ifs?". What if I do this?
0:48:38 > 0:48:41And there's no reason not to do it and he does it.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44Is that the lesson for you? That he liberates artists?
0:48:44 > 0:48:48Yes, the lesson for us is to do first and then think. Just do it.
0:48:48 > 0:48:51If you're interested in something,
0:48:51 > 0:48:56if something excites you to explore, you do it.
0:48:56 > 0:48:58You don't have to justify it.
0:49:04 > 0:49:06Personally, I think that Lichtenstein was having
0:49:06 > 0:49:08a lot of fun in his later work.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11He identified the ticks and tropes associated with
0:49:11 > 0:49:16a number of different styles and offered them up almost as logos.
0:49:16 > 0:49:18He had a lifelong interest in form.
0:49:18 > 0:49:22He didn't paint things, he painted style.
0:49:22 > 0:49:26This offered up all sorts of mind-wrenching conundrums.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34Now, here's a painting that I bet, if you hadn't seen it before
0:49:34 > 0:49:37and didn't know the title, you'd be hard pressed to guess what it is.
0:49:37 > 0:49:39In fact, it's a self portrait
0:49:39 > 0:49:41and Lichtenstein's having a bit of fun, clearly.
0:49:41 > 0:49:43He doesn't actually appear in the work.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46In the place of his head, there's a mirror.
0:49:46 > 0:49:49There's no body, instead just an empty, blank white T-shirt
0:49:49 > 0:49:52with a label that doesn't even have a brand name on it.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55So none of the great self revelation of famous self portraits of the past.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58There are no eyes which are windows onto the soul,
0:49:58 > 0:50:01no wrinkles or lines bespeaking crumpled experience.
0:50:01 > 0:50:04Instead, it's just quit flat, typical Lichtenstein.
0:50:04 > 0:50:08At the same time, it's a statement of identity.
0:50:08 > 0:50:13It seems completely anonymous, but because that style is so immediately recognisable,
0:50:13 > 0:50:16you know who did this, it screams Lichtenstein.
0:50:18 > 0:50:23For me, this paradox is at the heart of Lichtenstein's work.
0:50:23 > 0:50:27He's the artist who passes himself off as the invisible man.
0:50:27 > 0:50:28Yet, in doing so,
0:50:28 > 0:50:33he emblazons himself indelibly on the pages of art history.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41Roy Lichtenstein has become one of the most influential artists
0:50:41 > 0:50:43that America's ever produced.
0:50:49 > 0:50:54Take Damien Hirst's infamous million-dollar dots
0:50:54 > 0:50:57or Julian Opie's stark, flattened faces.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01Jeff Koons's cartoonish fantasies.
0:51:05 > 0:51:09And now, a new generation, including New York artist Cory Arcangel
0:51:09 > 0:51:14who hacked a well-known computer game to create Super Mario clouds.
0:51:17 > 0:51:22Lichtenstein and his dots may have evolved from the pages of cheap commercial printing,
0:51:22 > 0:51:25but they also anticipated today's pixellated world.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31And you don't have to be an art critic to sense that
0:51:31 > 0:51:36the British artist Michael Craig-Martin is in dialogue with his American predecessor.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44Michael's particularly excited by Lichtenstein's later work.
0:51:46 > 0:51:50- It is one of his greatest paintings, I think.- Really?- Definitely.
0:51:50 > 0:51:53I remember the first time I saw it, took my breath away
0:51:53 > 0:51:55because I think it's so immensely powerful.
0:51:55 > 0:51:59Its scale, its confidence in the drawing, its use of patterning.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01This is a great masterpiece.
0:52:01 > 0:52:05So you think that this is more of a masterpiece than some of those
0:52:05 > 0:52:08early comic book, cartoon paintings?
0:52:08 > 0:52:11Well, I love the early comic book paintings
0:52:11 > 0:52:13and the early advertising images,
0:52:13 > 0:52:19but I think that it's extraordinary the way that he was able to
0:52:19 > 0:52:22take the language that exists so naturally in them
0:52:22 > 0:52:25and expand that language to enable him
0:52:25 > 0:52:28to do such a complex painting as this, that's got
0:52:28 > 0:52:31so many different references, so many different things going on in it.
0:52:31 > 0:52:34There's the water lilies, which is obviously Monet's water lilies
0:52:34 > 0:52:38and then we have a late Jasper Johns, we have a scene of Egypt,
0:52:38 > 0:52:40we have a woman in a bikini,
0:52:40 > 0:52:44all of these different things have been drawn into that.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47Anybody looking at this picture,
0:52:47 > 0:52:50they're reminded of the language of comic strips, that he has been
0:52:50 > 0:52:53able to turn this language into something that allows him
0:52:53 > 0:52:56to touch on everything.
0:52:56 > 0:52:58- It's a painting about paintings. - It is.
0:52:58 > 0:53:02I think this is about as challenging a contemporary painting as you can see.
0:53:02 > 0:53:07I wonder whether you could try and unpick the way that he has managed
0:53:07 > 0:53:14to unify elements and areas that, on paper, shouldn't go together at all.
0:53:14 > 0:53:16Subtle details like this very...
0:53:16 > 0:53:18ALARM SOUNDS
0:53:18 > 0:53:20I keep on doing that and it's very unfortunate.
0:53:20 > 0:53:22You want to get into the painting, that's the problem.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25You can see the orange which is used for the ashtray by the bed,
0:53:25 > 0:53:28which is picked up in the eye of the Jasper Johns.
0:53:28 > 0:53:32In a way, there's no need within the composition of the picture to
0:53:32 > 0:53:34have such a small object.
0:53:34 > 0:53:35It's a tiny object.
0:53:35 > 0:53:41But what he's doing is he's using the object to allow himself to put
0:53:41 > 0:53:46a bit of orange there which he needs in order to light up this spot.
0:53:46 > 0:53:50If you look, within all the colours there, it's the most foreign colour.
0:53:50 > 0:53:54There's only a little bit of it, but it's lighting up the whole area.
0:53:54 > 0:53:59I wonder how much Lichtenstein has been a touchstone in your work,
0:53:59 > 0:54:02because superficially there are similarities between you
0:54:02 > 0:54:07both as artists. You also use the black outline, the flat colour.
0:54:07 > 0:54:10I think of myself as having tried to make a language which
0:54:10 > 0:54:14I could apply to as many different things as possible.
0:54:14 > 0:54:16For me, certainly,
0:54:16 > 0:54:21if anything, that's the thing that I would say I've taken from his work.
0:54:25 > 0:54:28When Lichtenstein died in 1997, it was the end of a career
0:54:28 > 0:54:33spanning half a century, in which he'd created nearly 5,000 works.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37This is his biggest exhibition ever held in Britain and I think
0:54:37 > 0:54:41it should transform the way that many people think about him.
0:54:41 > 0:54:42The show is about to open to the public,
0:54:42 > 0:54:45but first, the critics have been allowed in to give their judgment
0:54:45 > 0:54:48and I've managed to collar one of them before he escapes,
0:54:48 > 0:54:50Jonathan Jones, who writes for the Guardian newspaper.
0:54:50 > 0:54:53Jonathan, what's your take? Do you think it's any good?
0:54:53 > 0:54:55Well, of course it's good.
0:54:55 > 0:54:59It's a dazzling exhibition, he's a dazzling artist.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03I just wonder if the dazzle, for me, is a little bit polished.
0:55:03 > 0:55:08It's a little bit surface and brilliant.
0:55:08 > 0:55:12He takes this really powerful style, hugely original,
0:55:12 > 0:55:16totally unique to him, a trademark almost.
0:55:16 > 0:55:21And is he trapped by his style? Does he become the prisoner of it?
0:55:21 > 0:55:23I see it the other way round,
0:55:23 > 0:55:26because I feel like he was a prisoner of other people's styles,
0:55:26 > 0:55:28he couldn't get past them in the '50s, the period
0:55:28 > 0:55:30when he was trying to forge his own identity,
0:55:30 > 0:55:33and this style that he creates liberates him.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36In some of the late work, don't you see a kind of free-wheeling,
0:55:36 > 0:55:41zany, anarchic use of colour and pattern exploding
0:55:41 > 0:55:43and pulsating, which has so much energy,
0:55:43 > 0:55:46some of the energy that perhaps you're not seeing in the artist,
0:55:46 > 0:55:48maybe it is there in those late pictures?
0:55:48 > 0:55:53I disagree. For me, the '60s stuff is fantastic.
0:55:53 > 0:55:58There's an electrical quality to them, the Ben-Day dots, they're not
0:55:58 > 0:56:04- just dots, they hum on the wall, they fizz and just gradually fizzles away. - Tails off.
0:56:04 > 0:56:08That's what it does for me. It's witty and it's kind of beautiful.
0:56:08 > 0:56:11Very witty, very succinct and yet I feel he's just ever so slightly
0:56:11 > 0:56:15intellectually lazy and every so slightly emotionally self-satisfied.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17For me, the great artists like Picasso...
0:56:17 > 0:56:20Picasso was worth bringing in because he makes reference a lot to Picasso
0:56:20 > 0:56:26and he does his versions of Picasso and Picasso did loads of versions of other people's work.
0:56:26 > 0:56:30It was always art about art and yet it always bites much deeper.
0:56:30 > 0:56:33It bites that much harder. Maybe what I'm really saying with Lichtenstein is,
0:56:33 > 0:56:36Roy Lichtenstein is the style rather than a man.
0:56:36 > 0:56:38Whether that's a good or a bad thing,
0:56:38 > 0:56:43- that style has certainly proved lucrative.- At 35 million.
0:56:43 > 0:56:4436 million...
0:56:44 > 0:56:48But Lichtenstein's paintings are about more than their price tags.
0:56:48 > 0:56:51They helped make modern art mainstream.
0:56:51 > 0:56:5350 years after many of them were created,
0:56:53 > 0:56:55we still find them exhilarating.
0:56:55 > 0:56:59What really surprised me was the range of his work.
0:56:59 > 0:57:03I had no idea of the other genres and styles that he'd pastiched,
0:57:03 > 0:57:05but in a really paintily way.
0:57:05 > 0:57:09I expected to see the images that you see everywhere, T-shirts,
0:57:09 > 0:57:12tea towels, bedspreads, the whole kind of thing.
0:57:12 > 0:57:16It's nice to see it live. It's not just flat and boring.
0:57:16 > 0:57:19I was surprised generally by how different his artwork was
0:57:19 > 0:57:22compared to what I thought I'd already known about him.
0:57:22 > 0:57:25The story of basically how he came to paint the way he did
0:57:25 > 0:57:27is more interesting to me, as much as anything else,
0:57:27 > 0:57:29because it's symptomatic of the time.
0:57:29 > 0:57:33I thought this was a show that really showed much more range
0:57:33 > 0:57:34and depth to him as an artist.
0:57:41 > 0:57:43What I find really exciting about this exhibition is that it's
0:57:43 > 0:57:48made me think about Roy Lichtenstein in an entirely new way.
0:57:48 > 0:57:50People sometimes assume that pop art is a bit superficial,
0:57:50 > 0:57:53a bit glib, but Lichtenstein wasn't a one-trick pony just
0:57:53 > 0:57:55ripping off cartoons and comics.
0:57:57 > 0:58:01Of course, his paintings are funny, they're bold, they're punchy,
0:58:01 > 0:58:03but I now realise they're also filled with all sorts
0:58:03 > 0:58:06of sophisticated insights and references to
0:58:06 > 0:58:11the culture around him and also, above all, to art.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17It turns out that this controversial pop artist, who's been
0:58:17 > 0:58:21so influential on advertising and design and, ultimately,
0:58:21 > 0:58:23has shaped the world around us,
0:58:23 > 0:58:25was above all else a traditional painter,
0:58:25 > 0:58:29whose supposedly dumb-looking pictures always
0:58:29 > 0:58:31operate with real intelligence and wit.
0:58:43 > 0:58:47Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd