“I pressed the fire control…”

Many late 20th century artists have been associated with Pop art, but few as closely as Roy Lichtenstein. And his classic WHAAM! at London’s Tate Gallery is perhaps his most well-known piece. Using imagery and styles from mass media to make art of a monumental scale and formal power, few have done more than Lichtenstein did here when it comes to precision, zinging energy and irony. His picture is an image of modern warfare in a popular style, but it is as strong as any battle painting of the past. The idiom is so cool, the observer scarcely notices.

WHAAM! is based on an image from ‘All American Men of War’ published by DC comics in 1962. Throughout the 1960s, Lichtenstein frequently drew on commercial art sources such as comic images or advertisements, attracted by the way highly emotional subject matter could be depicted using detached techniques. But by transferring this to a painting context, Lichtenstein could present powerfully charged scenes in an impersonal manner and leave it up to the viewers to decipher the meaning for themselves.

Most people were at first shocked into incomprehension by the cartoon paintings. Lichtenstein bad been inspired by American comics about war when he made this work and was not only interested in the stories they told, but also in the way that comic books were produced. He carefully studied and reproduced the way small dots of ink were printed close to each other to appear like large blocks of color on the page. It was a revolution of sorts. And “When he first did the Pop paintings,” Lichtenstein’s wife Dorothy recalls, “Roy said he looked on them with horror himself. It was almost a matter of getting beyond his own taste to continue doing them.”

His work to soon become a smashing success, Lichtenstein became the epitome of Pop art. His paintings are now everywhere, not only in the great galleries of the world but also as merchandise on mugs, T-shirts, posters and postcards. Cool, stylish and witty, Lichtenstein’s art was part of the essence of the 1960s.

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