Roy Lichtenstein: History in the Making, 1948-1960 Review: Before His Career Popped – The Wall Street Journal

Watermill, N.Y.

When scholars examine a famous artists early work, the temptation is to search for portentsto find in classroom studies any nascent motifs that point to future prowess and foretell mastery as inevitable.

One of the refreshing aspects of Roy Lichtenstein: History in the Making, 1948-1960 at the Parrish Art Museum is that the curators havent surrounded this period with an aura of destiny. One walks through the three rooms and sees the artist testing out a bewildering variety of styles and subjects without ever settling on one. Not until 1960, when he was in his late 30s, did he discover the formulafigures lifted from American comic books, outlined in black, filled in with bright primary colors and abstracted by Ben-day dotsthat became a defining signature of Pop Art.

Until then, as the show succinctly documents, Lichtenstein roamed blithely through the annals of art and illustration. He painted tank-like figures that recall the Surrealism of Max Ernst and the eccentric classicism of John Graham (The Diver, c. 1948-49). He made tapered sculptures in wood and metal that invoke African and Northwest American Indian art (King, c. 1951). He satirized U.S. history painting (Washington Crossing the Delaware, c. 1951) by flattening the heroic figures of Emanuel Leutzes panoramic canvas in the manner of Picassos Three Musicians.

Elements of his later style are visible but not yet synthesized. Images of cartoon animals from about 1958installed in a section of the show titled Glimmers of Poplack the flat-toned audacity of his post-1960 paintings. A brush-and-ink drawing of a reclining Bugs Bunny renders his buck-toothed head as if he were a hallucination or perhaps one of De Koonings Woman paintings. Two drawings of Mickey Mouse are more disturbing than droll.

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Roy Lichtenstein: History in the Making, 1948-1960 Review: Before His Career Popped - The Wall Street Journal