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ROY LICHTENSTEIN | REFLECTIONS SERIES 1990 The Reflections Series was completed at Tyler Graphics in 1989-90 and is one of the most visually and technically complicated printed series of Roy Lichtenstein’s career. The prints are based on a series of Reflections paintings, which were first started in 1988. In each work, the main image is partially obscured by blocks of colour or patterns, some printed and some collaged to the surface of the print. The obfuscation of the central image creates a feeling of distance between the artwork and the viewer, however the use of familiar motifs such as the Ben-Day dots and Lichtenstein-esque patterns in the reflections help to draw the viewer in to the image. As a true Pop Artist, Lichtenstein’s typical subject matter was gleaned from mass media and popular culture. However, in the Reflections Series, his subject matter refers back to motifs and imagery from his own earlier work: the blonde girl, the war comic, the Brushstroke, the gilt frames of his Entablatures Series, and Ben-Day dots to name a few. Through appropriating images from the entirety of his own career, he is subtly establishing that his own work had already become part of the collective mass of visual culture. Technically, the works employ many different yet complementary methods of printing: lithograph, screenprint, relief, collage, embossing and woodcut. The publisher and printer, Kenneth Tyler of Tyler Graphics Inc., has a long history of master printing, working with such art world luminaries as Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenberg, Ellsworth Kelley, Helen Frankenthaler, and David Hockney. Lichtenstein’s Reflections Series is a prime example of the master printing of Tyler Graphics at its height of operations. The Reflections series, in its complexity of printing and subject matter, is a prime example of the best of Lichtenstein’s printed work
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