Whaam!: Is Roy Lichtenstein a copy-cat?
Reading and Discussion Task sheet
Before reading
Have you heard of – and can you name – any modern artists of the past 60 years?
Can you describe the characteristics of abstract painting, pop art and conceptual art?
Do you have any opinion about the quality of this kind of work?
Have you heard of Roy Lichtenstein? Can you describe the kind of paintings he produced?
While reading
Read the article and answer the following questions:
1. Why were Roy Lichtenstein’s paintings controversial in the 1960s, when they were first
exhibited?
2. Are they controversial for the same reasons today?
3. Dave Gibbons accuses Lichtenstein of ‘swiping’. Can you explain what that is?
4. What was the relationship between Lichtenstein and Irv Novick?
5. Describe the differences between Lichtenstein’s painting and Novick’s cartoon.
6. In what ways might Lichtenstein’s painting be an attack on the work of rival artists, the
abstract painters Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis? Do you find this argument
convincing?
7. What positive characteristics does the art critic Richard Morphet find in Lichtenstein’s
Whaam!?
After reading
Look again at the images and the text. Do you agree with the final line of Alistair Sooke’s
article?
Following up
If you want to more about Roy Lichtenstein, his comic book sources and his life, see the short
feature on his art at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd1vPy1KnB4
Alistair Sooke also debates further with Dave Gibbons about the relative merits of Lichtenstein
and Novick in the longer documentary available on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0gyP17bs8I [see from 34’30” until 39’42”]