M-Maybe
M-Maybe | |
---|---|
Artist | Roy Lichtenstein |
Year | 1965 |
Movement | Pop art |
Dimensions | 152.4 cm × 152.4 cm (60 in × 60 in) |
Location | Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany |
M-Maybe is a 1965 pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein. It is one of his romance comics-based works.
History
Lichtenstein's first solo show at The Leo Castelli Gallery in February 1962 sold out before opening.
Details
M-Maybe depicts a blonde girl, which is typical for Lichtenstein's romance
Eckhard Schneider describes this single-frame style of art as stills suddenly halting a narrative associated with young women's predicaments, noting that "The private tone of the words increases the paintings’ aura of authenticity, like verbal snap-snots – an aspect especially apparent in the hesitantly voiced ‘M-Maybe’." However, Lichtenstein idealizes the appearance with graphic tension that separates the emotional subject matter from the apparent poise of the depiction.[3]
Lichtenstein had a desire that his paintings look as mechanical as possible although he was a painter. Rather than selecting subject matter from photographs by an individual, he selected teen and action comics, such as the obvious source for this work, as subjects since they were illustrated by teams that produced source material that was devoid of "personal elements of style".[4]
After 1963, Lichtenstein's comics-based women "look hard, crisp, brittle, and uniformly modish in appearance, as if they all came out of the same pot of makeup." This particular example is one of several that is cropped so closely that the girl's hair flows beyond the edges of the canvas.[5] This is an example of Lichtenstein humorously presenting a subject that might be crowded out in a newspaper with a sort of ironic self-awareness that relies on the difference between art and the rest of the world.[6]
See also
Notes
- ISBN 0-8109-2356-4.
- ISBN 0-500-28126-2.
- ISBN 3-88375-965-1.
- ISBN 3-8228-9633-0.
- Praeger Publishers. p. 23.
- ISBN 978-0-300-17971-2.
External links