A painting by Roy Lichtenstein, the father of pop art and noted for using cartoon images and techniques, has sold for $43 million. The painting, “I Can See the Whole Room! … and There’s Nobody in It!” was created in 1961.
The comic strip-inspired work was part of a sale of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s auction house.
His previous record of $42 million (£26 million) was set in November last year.
That was for Lichtenstein’s 1964 work Ohhh… Alright… which portrayed a woman talking into a telephone.
This kind of thing makes me sad for cartoonists like Russ Heath who in their later years fall on hard times but derivative paintings of their cartoons by Lichtenstein sell for that much money and they get nothing.
Meanwhile the original comic strip that painting was based on
sold for a few hundred bucks on Ebay about two months ago.
I CAN SEE THE WHOLE ROOM? AND THERE?S NOBODY IN IT !
~ Artist William Overgard?s Original Art ~
SWIPED BY ROY LICHTENSTEIN IN 1961
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/6259392311/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/46915622/in/photostream
Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein
David Barsalou MFA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/
Comic books apparently aren’t real ‘art’ but bad paintings that use them ironically as source material apparently are. What Patrick said!