The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation will donate 186 works of art and other materials by the late pop artist to five museums ahead of what would have been Roy Lichtenstein’s 100th birthday in October.
The institutions that receive donations are the Albertina in Vienna; the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine; the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York’s Meatpacking District, which received the artist’s nearby studio as a gift from his widow Dorothy Lichtenstein last year. The foundation will distribute archival prints, drawings, sculptures, paintings and films to the five institutions.
“We are delighted to start the centenary early by donating art to these five outstanding museums, each of which has a history of sharing Lichtenstein’s work with the public,” said Jack Cowart, Executive Director of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. . in a report.
The Whitney Museum already houses a significant collection of Lichtenstein’s works and will receive another 66 objects from the foundation, including preparatory work related to the artist’s work Times Square Mural (1994) printing process materials and rare designs for his Three Landscapes movie (1969-70).
The foundation donated 34 works on paper spanning from 1948 to 1997 to the Albertina, including woodcuts and linoleum prints, as well as lithographs and serigraphs from later in his career. A selection of these works is already exhibited in Vienna in an exhibition at the Albertina Modern devoted to modern and contemporary printmaking. The rest of the donation will serve as the basis for a centenary celebration currently planned by the institution for 2024.
The Colby College Museum of Art and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, which last year co-hosted a traveling exhibition of Lichtenstein’s work produced between 1948 and 1960, received a joint gift from Composition (1955), one of the artist’s seminal mixed-media works composed of painted scrap wood, bolts and screws. Individually, the foundation gifted Colby with two Lichtenstein works on paper, four paintings, and a sculpture; the Nasher receives two works on paper, five paintings and a sculpture.
The foundation has reserved 70 items related to Lichtenstein’s Three Landscapes film project for Lacma. The film was originally commissioned by the museum and served as the centerpiece in the museum’s groundbreaking exhibition in 1971. Art and technology.
“Given his modesty, Roy might not have wanted to worry about this birthday, but I’m sure he would have been delighted to know that in his hundredth year his work seems so fresh, radical and relevant. than ever before, and is now honored as a lifelong achievement,” Dorothy Lichtenstein, chair of the foundation’s board, said in a statement.
Lichtenstein was born October 23, 1923 and died in 2017. The foundation will mark what would have been Lichtenstein’s 100th birthday through gifts, exhibits and other programs. The foundation has already advised the US Postal Service on a series of commemorative stamps based on the work of Lichtenstein.
On Thursday, the estate of Dada artist Hans Arp revealed that she donate 220 sculptures by the late artist in ten museums around the world. And earlier this spring, in another centenary act of generosity, the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation donated grants and artwork by Kelly—including 100th anniversary was Wednesday (May 31) – at 50 museums across the United States.
