POP WHAAAM BANG: 40+ Iconic Works from Lichtenstein’s Estate to be Offered at Sotheby’s NY

“I’ll let art historians speak about the loftier aspects of my father’s work, but what I most appreciate is the sense of humor embedded in all of it. It’s a wry humor that was part of who he was every day. Yet though there’s so much humor in his work, to my father art was all about composition. When asked for comment about his subject matter, he often said ‘It’s just marks on a page’.”
Mitchell Lichtenstein 

“From drawings to paintings to sculpture, this phenomenal group of works provide a front row seat to Lichtenstein’s incomparable genius. Together, the group is a survey of the artist’s reflections of art history over four decades of practice. Lichtenstein’s imagery continues to spark conversation as vividly today as it did at the time of its creation. These works are unveiled for the very first time at auction, coming from the private collection of Dorothy and Roy. The full scope of the offering is a rich and varied selection that will resonate with collectors around the world – there is truly something for everyone.”

David Galperin, Sotheby’s Vice Chairman, Head of Contemporary Art, Sotheby’s New York

NEW YORK, 17 APRIL 2025 –  Celebrated as one of the defining figures of the Pop art movement, Roy Lichtenstein’s dynamic practice expanded beyond his famous comic strip works, spanning a wide range of styles, media and themes. Following the sale of a select group of works from the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein at Sotheby’s in November 2024, Sotheby’s is pleased to partner with the Lichtenstein family to offer an expanded trove of more than 40 works by the American Pop icon at auction this May. Coming to auction for the first time after remaining in their personal collection for decades, the group of works charts four decades of Lichtenstein’s practice, following his shift from abstract expressionism to Pop art in the 60s, to his exploration of modern art in the 70s, through to his celebrated Reflections series from the 80s, and culminating in his famous interiors and nudes of the 90s. Together, “Roy’s Lichtensteins” form a throughline of the artist’s most introspective examinations of his life and practice: the metaphorical reflections on his own oeuvre, his reflections on other artists and the art historical canon, and his formal explorations of rendering reflections in his work.

A remarkable grouping of the artist’s output across various media, the group comprises paintings, drawings, sculpture and prints. Among the works on offer are the artist’s investigation of the work of the modernists, surrealists, and others, such as Picasso, Monet, Calder, subjecting them all to his own aesthetic and asserting his place in art history. A common thread of Lichtenstein’s distinct humor and joie de vivre is woven throughout. Works highlight his more literal takes on reflection and plays on illusion, and elsewhere, drawings and studies mark the genesis for Lichtenstein’s most iconic paintings.

Estimated to achieve in excess of $35 million, highlights from the collection will travel to Hong Kong from 18-23 April before returning to New York for pre-sale exhibition ahead of Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening and Day sales this May.

“Lichtenstein was keenly aware of his place in the lineage of art history. The crux of his practice is this interrogation of the nature of art and image making, and this is singularly relevant in one of the group’s highlights, the aptly titled “Reflections on Art”. Whether adapting the works of artists such as Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Alexander Calder, or using his own work as a jumping off point, Lichtenstein’s practice is uniquely reflexive and referential. This amazing group of works epitomizes that concern.” 

Lucius Elliott, Head of Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auctions in New York 

Roy Lichtenstein 

Born in New York City in 1923, Roy Lichtenstein fell in love with art from an early age. Drawing and sculpting in his teenage years, he took classes at the Art Students League, and also developed a deep love for jazz music. Drafted into the army in 1943, he later completed his Fine Arts degree at Ohio State University, and became an art instructor there. By 1951, Lichtenstein had his first solo show in New York, and in 1957, became an assistant  professor at State University New York at Oswego. While he gained popularity in the early 1960s for his renowned “Girl Paintings,” the decade also saw him expand into sculpture and ceramics.

Roy Lichtenstein’s Southampton Studio, April 2025

His work was regularly shown in major exhibitions, solidifying his place in the Pop art movement alongside the likes of Warhol and Rosenquist. Despite his acclaim, his Ben-Day dots proved controversial at the time, and an infamous 1964 LIFE magazine headline asked: “Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.”? In 1968, he married Dorothy Herzka, who later became president of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, a notable philanthropist and custodian of the artist’s legacy.

In the decades that followed, Lichtenstein turned his attention from comic book images to encompass a broader array of inspirations and source material. From the early 1970s, he and Dorothy often retreated to their coastal residence in Southampton, which featured a separate studio situated just across the lawn from the main home. Complete with his signature rotating custom easels, Lichtenstein created many of his works in his light-filled studio. Recent images taken by Sotheby’s offer a rare look inside the artist’s private, rarely photographed Southampton studio, featuring several of the works on offer in the auction in the space.

Today, his work is held in esteemed collections around the world, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; San Francisco Museum of Art, and many more.

Dorothy Lichtenstein 

Dorothy Lichtenstein was a generous philanthropist and a transformative figure in the art world, and co-founder and president of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1939, she studied political science and art history at Arcadia University before becoming director of the Paul Bianchini Gallery in Manhattan, where she met Roy. The couple married in 1968 and remained together until his passing in 1997.

Dorothy was celebrated for her gracious approach to preserving and sharing her husband’s work and legacy. She orchestrated the donation of over 1,000 of his pieces – including paintings, sculptures, sketches, and personal archives -to museums worldwide, with the Whitney Museum as the main beneficiary. Beyond art, Dorothy led a rich life filled with curiosity and compassion. Her philanthropic interests spanned creative writing and film programs at Stony Brook Southampton, to animal rights and stem-cell research. In 2022, Dorothy and the Lichtenstein family donated Roy’s former studio to the Whitney Museum to house its Independent Study Program.

Collection Highlights 

Reflections: Art

1988, acrylic, oil and graphite on canvas

Estimate $4,000,000 – 6,000,000

“Take the Reflections series, which represents artworks framed under protective glass as oftentimes they are. The unfortunate side-effect of this good intentioned protection are reflections that partially obscure the work. In this series, he turns this bug into a feature imbuing these paintings with both humor and mystery. Luckily, Museum Glass wasn’t in common use in the early ‘90s, otherwise this series might not exist!”
– Mitchell Lichtenstein

After decades of exploring the history of art, by 1988, Lichtenstein entered a new phase of confidence. Asserting that his work had reached the same universal recognition as the popular imagery of the comics, cartoons and advertisements that he appropriated throughout his practice, Lichtenstein turned his attention to a body of masterworks he had yet to reinvent: his own earlier paintings. An early example of Lichtenstein’s seminal, career-defining Reflections series, the 36 total canvases in the series see the artist wrestle, reconsider and reunite with works from his earlier output, rendering their surfaces both image and mirror. Reflections: Art is a reflection of one of his first mature paintings, Art, from 1962.

In this work, there is no physically reflective quality, or trompe l’oeil – Reflections: Art functions as a self-portrait of Lichtenstein’s mind. Exploring not only what art is but also who we are in the face of it, Lichtenstein’s lifelong mission of inspiring in his viewers their own reflections on art is summarized in this single canvas: art as a readymade, as a word, as an artwork, as the canon, and as himself.

Other examples from the series reside in international institutional collections, including The Broad, Los Angeles; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, among others.

Art © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Woman: Sunlight, Moonlight

1996, acrylic on wood

Estimate $4,000,000 – 6,000,000

“There is a subversive humor in many of his sculptures in that, though technically 3- dimensional, they defiantly take no advantage of their dimensionality. It’s as if these aren’t sculptures at all, but 2-dimensional paintings that required the artist’s skill to evoke the illusion of a third dimension.” 
-Mitchell Lichtenstein

For more than four decades, Lichtenstein confronted art history head on. From Mondrian’s grids to Matisse’s dancers, Monet’s cathedrals to Picasso’s lovers, he scoured art history’s most powerful themes and subjects, re-casting them with his own Pop take. Lichtenstein revisited the female figure later in his career as part of his reinterpretation of art history, blending his own celebrated output to create new works of art. The ultimate embodiment of his career-long exploration of his Pop and pioneering investigation into the form, content, and history of Contemporary Art, this seminal sculpture belongs to the artist’s 1990s series of flat profile sculptures.

Art © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

The work is one of two unique examples of the form executed in wood in preparation for the bronze edition of six, and second example in wood is held in the collection of the Whitney Museum of Art, New York. Bronze editions are held in collections including that of The Broad, Los Angeles and have been featured in numerous major exhibitions including Lichtenstein’s landmark retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago which later traveled to the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

In his double-sided sculpture, Lichtenstein utilizes positive and negative space to evoke the duality of sunlight and moonlight.

Stretcher Frame with Cross Bars III

1968, acrylic, oil, graphite pencil on canvas

Estimate $2,500,000-3,500,000

The amusing aspect of the Stretcher Frame painting is that of the two sides of a canvas, it depicts the side we least want to see.
-Mitchell Lichtenstein

Art © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Belonging to a rare and limited group of eleven Stretcher Frame paintings created between 1967-68, Stretcher Frame with Cross Bars III is an encapsulation of Lichtenstein’s investigation of art itself. A counterpart to his iconic 1965-66 Brushstroke paintings, which investigated the act of painting, the series takes Lichtenstein’s exploration of ‘art about art’ to a new level, playfully exploring its boundaries with his signature Pop idiom. Adopting Surrealism and Dada’s questioning of the relationship between reality and representation, the artist not only challenges the viewer’s expectations of reality, but also our conceptions of a painted canvas. Representing the reverse of a painting and concealing the assumed front from view, Lichtenstein takes the viewer backstage, letting them into the making of the work.

The painting has been featured in among Lichtenstein’s most significant solo exhibitions, including the artist’s early survey organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in 1969, and his seminal traveling lifetime retrospective (1993-96), which traveled to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; and Columbus, Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University.

Mirror I
1976, painted and patinated bronze

Estimate $1,000,000 – 1,500,000

“I use a mirror to see the painting reversed, and because I’ve been working on the painting for so long one gets used to everything in it, and when you suddenly look in the mirror, the things that are wrong to you seem to be emphasized because you’ve seen the image as though you’re seeing it over again or seeing it for the first time.” – Roy Lichtenstein[1]

[1] Roy Lichtenstein, directed by Michael Blackwood

Art © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Since the Renaissance, artists from Parmigianino to Jan van Eyck to Frida Kahlo have utilized the mirror to demonstrate their mastery of formal technique as well as a form of self-portraiture and perception.

In 1969, Lichtenstein initiated his own appraisal of one of the most technically challenging motifs of Western painting: the mirror. Between 1969-72, Lichtenstein produced a limited suite of Mirror paintings to convey reflective surfaces in paint, parodying tropes of mirrored surfaces in art history and contemporary advertising.  The motif of the series reappeared in the artist’s work through the remainder of his life, notably in his seminal suite of Mirror sculptures from 1976-77, of which the present work is an exceptional example.

From Lichtenstein’s earliest forays with three-dimensionality in the mid-1940s through the end of his life in 1997, sculpture remained at the center of his oeuvre. In Mirror I, Lichtenstein’s investigation of illusion and reflection extends from beyond the picture plane and into the third dimension. He confronts the idea of the mirror as a window or portal to convey a new form of meaning, and with each installation of this work, the sculpture takes on a new character.

Interior with African Mask (Study)

1990, tape, cut painted paper, cut sponge-painted paper, cut printed paper, marker, graphite pencil on board

Estimate $800,000 – 1,200,000

One amusing thing to consider about the Interior series is that the generic furniture ad aesthetic of the rooms depicted in them is likely to be antithetical to the taste of the collector and to the room in which they hang the work.

-Mitchell Lichtenstein

Art © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Lichtenstein’s collage studies are an enlightening aspect of the artist’s meticulous process and preparation for his large-scale paintings. Nearly every detail is intentionally outlined, with cut out paper, tape, and marker and graphite to delineate the various complex elements of the final composition. Lichtenstein’s Interiors were the first major body of work the artist undertook in the 1990s. One of the last major series produced before the artist’s death, these paintings represent a culmination of Lichtenstein’s method of appropriating images from popular media. Depicting interior scenes, living rooms and bedrooms, Lichtenstein’s Interiors were a caricature of the images prevalent in the 1980s that graced the pages of Architectural Digest. This example is a detailed collage study for a monumental painting in the Broad Collection. Featuring an array of imagery drawn from both his own oeuvre and art history more broadly, the painting includes the mirror, a divider screen reminiscent of his Chinese landscapes, and an African mask on the shelf.

Entablature
1975, Acrylic, sand, graphite pencil on canvas

Estimate $500,000-700,000

Executed in 1975, Entablature comes from a series of a paintings the artist started in 1971, just as he began working in his beachfront Southampton studio. Utilizing accessible materials to achieve subtle textural variations on the surface of the canvas, the work incorporates sand from the beach near his home in Southampton. As a source for this body of work, Lichtenstein looked not only to Greek and Roman examples from reproductions in architectural journals, but also to his own photographs taken of Manhattan building façades, typically shot around noon to capture the interplay of light and shadow in high contrast.

Art © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Haystacks
1968, Acrylic, oil, graphite pencil on canvas

Estimate $400,000-600,000

His well-known use of Benday dots to convey shading is perhaps at its most irreverent in the Haystacks series in which Monet’s keenly observed depictions of the subtle changes of light throughout the day are here rendered in amusingly ham-fisted “mechanical” applications of dots in a single color. As a series, they still convey the progression of morning to evening light, but so much more efficiently!
– Mitchell Lichtenstein

Art © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Inserting his own unique read into the canon of art history, Lichtenstein used his distinctive Pop aesthetic to examine Monet’s Haystacks. Haystacks was created after a trip Lichtenstein took to Los Angeles in the summer of 1968, when he visited curator John Coplans at the Pasadena Art Museum to discuss his plans for an exhibition on serial imagery. The work is one of five Haystack paintings that were originally grouped by the artist to be shown at the 1969 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940–1970 in 1969. This example was most recently exhibited in Vienna at Roy Lichtenstein’s Centennial Exhibition in 2024.

Cover Image (The Gun in America) for Time Magazine (Study)
Circa 1968, graphite on paper

Estimate $200,000-300,000

Art © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

In 1968, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy sparked fierce debate on gun control. That same year, Time Magazine commissioned Roy Lichtenstein to create an image for their June 1968 cover, resulting in this head-on image of the barrel of a gun in response to the current events. This work is the artist’s study for the famous cover image, which was reproduced for Time’s July 6, 1998 cover, titled “Still Under the Gun”.

Notes to Editors: Please note copyright for all images: Art © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein  

Exhibition Dates

18 – 23 April, Hong Kong

2  – 15  May, New York