Artist, Roy Lichtenstein: Commercial art, and cartooning in particular, seemed to be discredited and "bad" and all of that. And it's what I want because it's not what people expect in art.
Narrator: That's Roy Lichtenstein talking about Pop Art, a movement in the 1950s and ‘60s, which borrowed imagery from popular culture. The source for this work was an advertisement, showcasing the pool at a Poconos Mountain resort in Pennsylvania. Lichtenstein painted it, imitating the look of a comic strip.
Roy Lichtenstein: The cartoon style was a miracle, in a way. I can't take credit for it, in a sense. It simply appeared through luck, almost. I was doing these abstract paintings, and then I began to introduce some comic figures, which I did just freely-drawn, when somehow it occurred to me to just do a straight cartoon-looking thing. It just seemed that was just exactly what I meant.
Archival audio from: Roy Lichtenstein and Michèle C. Cone. Interview with Roy Lichtenstein, undated. Michèle Cone papers, 1959-2020; Roy Lichtenstein and Colette Jacqueline Roberts. Interview with Roy Lichtenstein, 1968 December. Colette Roberts Papers and Interviews with Artists, 1918-1971; Roy Lichtenstein and John Jonas Gruen. Interview with Roy Lichtenstein, 1976 January 8. John Gruen and Jane Wilson papers, 1909-2016; and Roy Lichtenstein and John Jonas Gruen. Interview with Roy Lichtenstein, 1984 November 21. John Gruen and Jane Wilson papers, 1909-2016. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.