Year: 1976
Medium: screenprint and lithograph in colors wit collage and embossing
Dimensions: 107.4 x 138.2 cm (42 1/4 x 54 3/8 in.)
Edition: AP VIII, aside from the numbered edition of 30
Acquired from Sotheby’s, 2022
A pop-art master alongside Andy Warhol. This work is not a part of his signature Ben-Day dots series, but it is one of the relief-prints of a series from the later years of his activity in the 1970’s called the “Entablatures”. This work refers to the horizontal ornamentation on the top of the columns in Greco-Roman architecture. It is basically a three-layered structure of cornice, frieze and architrave, and the artwork visibly imitates this scheme. By morphologically restructuring the three-dimensional column capital into a flat format, it refers to a specific architectural design, a form that is totally different from painting. Lichtenstein’s early works adapting American comics to painting are essentially synonymous to this. As usually it is not easy to quote expressions between different forms of art (its necessity and probability is rather low), this work can be considered a clear demonstration of the unique peculiarity of Lichtenstein.
