Roy Liechtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein
Born: October 27, 1923 
New York, New York 
Died: September 29, 1997 
New York, New York 
American artist, painter, sculptor, and printmaker

Roy Lichtenstein, Americanpainter, sculptor, and printmaker, startled the art world in 1962 by exhibiting paintings based on comic book cartoons.
Early life
Roy Lichtenstein was born in New York City on October 27, 1923, the sonof Milton and Beatrice Werner Lichtenstein. His father owned a real estate firm. Lichtenstein studied with artist Reginald Marsh (1898–1954) at the Art Students League in 1939. After graduating fromBenjamin Franklin High School in New York City, he entered Ohio State University. However, in 1943 his education was interrupted by three years of army service, during which he drew up maps forplanned troop movements across Germany during World War II (1939–45; a war in which Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States fought against Germany, Japan, and Italy). Lichtensteinreceived his bachelor of fine arts degree from Ohio State University in 1946 and a master of fine arts degree in 1949. He taught at Ohio State until 1951, then went to Cleveland, Ohio, to work. In1957 he started teaching at Oswego State College in New York; in 1960 he moved to Rutgers University in New Jersey. Three years later he gave up teaching to paint full-time.
Early works
From 1951 toabout 1957 Lichtenstein's paintings dealt with themes of the American West—cowboys, Native Americans, and the like—in a style similar to that of modern European painters. Next he began hiding imagesof comic strip figures (such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Bugs Bunny) in his paintings. By 1961 he had created the images for which he became known. These included advertisementillustrations—common objects such as string, golf balls, kitchen curtains, slices of pie, or a hot dogs. He also used other artists' works to create new pieces, such as Woman with Flowered Hat (1963), based on a...