[Music] Okay. Today we're going to be talking about pop art on this nice day when you could be outside. Here you are sitting with me. All right. Well, there are a
lot of parallels between impressionism and pop art. First of all, they both focused on contemporary subject matter with new techniques and new materials. Secondly, the pop artists were the next generation, the next generation of
artists and there was a lot of controver controversy about them, but they took art in a new direction. Now, the main Wait a minute here. I want to make sure that All right. Here, this is of course Andy
Warhol. He was the pop art giant. Okay. This is two self-portraits of him uh done in in 1986. He was born in 1928 in Pit in Pittsburgh. His father was a coal miner. That's what everybody did in
Pennsylvania. You were a coal miner. Uh he was a came from a Catholic a Slovak Catholic family. The name is actually was actually Warhola, but he he dropped the last the last O the last. So in 1949
he graduated from Carnegie Institute uh with a degree in pictorial design and he began working with with ads for Tiffany and Bonwood Teller. In 1960 he began with comic strips Superman and such as Nancy and Sluggo who were Nancy and
Slugggo was my favorite. I love them. Now Lewis Castelli, Leo Castelli refused to sign him even though Castelli saw that he was very very talented because he had already signed about a week before Roy
Likenstein and Likenstein also did comic art. So he didn't want to have two comic artists, you know, vying with each other. Now Castelli refused to sign him because he had already signed Likenstein in 1962. Uh he was luckily enough to
have us the Sydney Janice Gallery show do a show on him and um Castelli became his dealer until he died. Um when Likenstein when um
Yeah. Okay. When uh Warhol died, Likenstein said of him he was the most influential on younger artists. He said and a real guru. So um he was signed by 1964
in uh with Castelli and he didn't die until 1987. So he stayed with Castelli. Now in 196 in 1960s he also had an what what was known as a as the um interview magazine which uh
which it tal talked about movie making, writing, artists, photography. He was really into everything. In 1968, he was cur seriously wounded when when one of his hangers on and they were pro they were just hangers on. They would
come to his to his studio and simply hang around there. The the woman named Ultraviolet shot him. Okay. He he fortunately he um recovered from it. He was to die. Now in 1986
he he got a commission to do a series of paintings on the about the last supper and uh it was never finished because in 1987 he had a gallbladder surgery and he died a few days later. So he had just about
started the lo the last supper the previous year and was doing var variations on them and I will even show you the picture that was taken the day after he died in his studio and what the studio looked like. Now the studio was
always very very loaded with stuff because Warhol never threw anything away. every bit of paper, every cookie jar he bought, he never threw anything away. Okay, so let's me let's start get
started on this. I don't know why this here it is. Now, this is what they call the the Tony shoe. It has nothing at all to do with Anthony, but it does have something to do with the world of fashion because at that time if something was really Tony, you were
really up to date and you were even a little bit a little bit beyond the date. Okay. Now, Warhol began his career as an illustrator. As I said, many shoe layouts for Andrew Geller, etc. that appeared in the New York Times because I
remember those ads. And then it was on the bottom of the page of the New York Times and it was a strip with these gorgeous shoes illustrated on it. Now he was also in New York work doing this while he was trying to turn his talent into art. When asked about his his art,
he replied, "Art? Isn't that a man's name?" He was very enigmatic and a very shy person. Now art is funny. Uh on one of my cruises, uh there were two gentlemen that were sent to my table
and uh one of the one of them told me that the other the other gentleman had lost his wife about two months ago. So he said, "I invited my friend to come with me." I said, "Oh, okay." So when they came to the table, one of them introduced himself. He said, "Hi, I'm
Art." I said, "You're Art?" "Yeah." He said, "I am." I said, 'Well, then you've got to sit next to me, Art, because I'm the art historian on board.' So, he got a big laugh out of that. And this was the man who had lost his wife. He got a big laugh out of it. Okay. Now, uh
Warhol also did set of boxes from 1964. He took objects from everyday life. Things that you and I again would just pass over in the in the grocery store and elevated them to a high to high art or a low art via his reproductions of
them because Brillo is still being made although the boxes have changed. Okay. So that an original Brillo box from those days would be an an iconic item because it's because they've changed the brillo boxes. All right. Now he was to
do this with more than just objects because he did he did a number of them would transform them in different ways. Um by the way the uh you know about the fires in in California. He had done a he did a 10 panel
uh c Campbell soup painting for a very wealthy man. I saw a picture of it. There was the this huge painting and in front of it there was a sofa and the sofa fitted exactly where the frame the frames of the painting ended. So you
knew that it was custom custom made and it would the the painting supposedly was was worth about $100 million. Well, it got burned and I felt sorry for the guy. But you know what? I felt a hell of a lot
sorryer for those who lost their homes and were going to have scratching their heads. How am I going to get a house again? I mean, if you have a hundred million, you've got the money to buy to rebuild another house if you've got a hund00 million painting sitting on the wall. Anyway, I don't want to I don't
want to digress. Uh, but sometimes I do, and you'll have to excuse me. Okay. You excuse me? Yes. All right. Fine. Okay. Now, here's another Turquoise Marilyn from 1962. iconic people became his subjects as
well and he elevated their status even more with multiple reproductions in variations of color. He used the silk screen technique. Now I am not that familiar with it but I do know the screen they use is silk is a silk
screen. And of course we realize the new paints came out. The paints were no longer oil paints. They were experimenting with different paint. Now the use of a school silk silkcreen uh technique presents a mechanical image
and prefigured its the ways computers can reproduce images electronically. Warhol did not live to see the internet not in 1987 anyway. The internet was yet to come in the early 90s. Uh and yet he
was almost its prophet. He said once everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. And there are a lot of people who are famous for 15 minutes and maybe even a half an hour, okay? Because of the fast fleet of life. Um, think of somebody
like Tiny Tim, you know, the the the one the little the guy with the banjo. All right. Now, the source of this photo is a still from the 1953 movie Niagara. Do you remember that with um uh um uh
Joseph Cotton was played her husband in it? and Marilyn Monroe was and it and it was all filmed in uh in the uh in New York State. Um, but Marilyn Monroe had done a movie two or three years before
where she and it was probably one of her first that it was one of the movies where she actually had a large part and she played the part of a babysitter who was obviously taking care of two children uh o
overnight because the parents had gone out. They were at a hotel and uh she really really came over in a really really chilling manner. She was excellent in the movie and if you can ever catch it on Turner Classic movies
and I again I don't remember the name but she made it around made that movie maybe around 1948 or 49. I would suggest you look at it because she was not playing the silly silly Marilyn. She was really really serious and very very it
was a very chilling movie. It really was. Now now here is another this of course is famous painting of Warhol's 16 Jackis from 1965. Warhol's repetition of images of JF of
John Kennedy that need no explanation here bring to mind the multiplicity of image images that we see today in airports constantly changing flashing before our eyes and our attention is captured for a few seconds as in a video
game or a commercial with its fast cuts from one scene to another. And Warhol said at the time, "I think someone should be able to do all of my paintings for me." Okay. Now, here was one of his students. This
is interesting. Dennis Hopper, as you know, was was an was an actor, but he be he was very interested in art and his first um teacher was Thomas Hartbettton. and then he went into movies and then he
also went to Warh Hall studio because he was he wanted to learn uh a little bit more about art. Now the mineral spirit base here was used with vivid colors and a and would it would
dry fast and could also be diluted with water. The the kind of kind of paints they were using could be diluted with water to create a watercolor effect. if necessary and thus the artist could be create many different effects. Magna was
the brand was one of the brand names for this ac new line of acrylic paints. Hopper as I said was a student of Benton and also a student of Warhol and I don't think they would have taken him in if he they didn't realize that he had talent.
Now here is wait a minute oops sorry here is something rather gruesome. It's Warhol's electric chair from 1971. I don't think you would exactly hang this in your dining room, would you? Or your living room. Where would you hang
this? It It's It's very gruesome. But he said, quote, "When you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it doesn't have any effect." And you know he's right. Think of all the horrors
that we have seen with shootings and we've come we've come to the point where we're oh another shooting and and it it it kind of rolls off our back after a while and it shouldn't but
it's it's something very difficult to live with. It truly is. Okay. Now he used garish colors here but the images were almost eradicated done in such a way that you don't see the um uh
the horror of it. The Guggenheim, you had this painting and it said, "The reiteration of the tragedy and attempt to exercise the image of death through repetition, showing it over and over again and they
again you you simply lose your your your horrors about it." Now, he was he was also now Warhol was also obsessed with death. He once wrote in his diary that he had a blackout and he hoped it wasn't cancer.
Okay. Even Mona Lisa gets into the act and she's already been dead more than 500 years. Okay. In the 1970s, Warhol went on a kick with Mona Lisa, repeating it add infinitum until he was satisfied. So in other words, once he got bored
with it, he went to another subject. Periodically, he returned to certain images as we shall see the silk screen technique. Two close-ups, one there and a a close-up at the bottom and and one showing her from the waist up. Now,
he takes an iconic image that that in modern times has lost its impact from being reproduced and trivialized on cards and even on drinking mugs. Okay. He attempts to recreate that image but
further trivial trivializes it with all the reproductions he does. All right. Now, now here's something else. This is called Diamond Dust Shoes from 1980. Now, Walt it with this painting. He
returns to his roots this time with poly polymer paints which have plastic in them and diamond dust to elevate the celebrity status. He obviously went and bought diamond dust. Now, what is diamond dust? Well, I once bought and I
this is a long time ago, a d a nail file that had diamond dust on it. I still have it and I remember paying a $1.50 for so you know how long I've had it. Okay. Okay. Now, diamond dust or pixie
dust will transform you or if you use the wear shoes like that, you're going to be transformed by the pixie dust. Okay. Now, this this is an ironic painting. Warhol's dollar sign from 1981. And I
remember when this was being ex uh um exhibited at um Sibies in I'm sorry, Christies in New York. Now this of course appear uh goes along with
our crash commercialism and commentary on our values. You know the dollar sign. All right. It elevates a symbol that preoccupies Americans. And this is what he saw in society and especially in New York where money is woripped. Now but
there was a duality here. This is a dollar sign. Well, what is a dollar sign? Well, the dollar sign shows a dollar. Okay. Well, ironically enough, the estimate on this painting was 2 and a half to $3.5 million.
It finally sold for $5,122,000 and $122,500. So, it's very ironic that that a a a symbol like this should should cost uh well uh a millionaire's fortune.
Okay. So, all right. This this I think was probably one thing that I really really enjoyed and it had a it had a texture too. There was a it had a very textural quality which you don't see here in the picture. Okay. When you look at it in
real life, remember this is a reproduction, okay? Of a reproduction. When you see the real thing, the real thing looks a little bit different. Okay? Now, let's go to the next one. He suddenly became
very very um obsessed with the Last Supper. Now, um this is Leonardo's Last Supper. Okay. I I do know that it hung he his mother had a
picture of it in the in the family kitchen and the f and and consequently he was very familiar with the painting. Remember they were Catholic family and I also understand that uh Warhol went to church every day. He was a very religious person, a very religious
character. And um this this was to this suddenly inspired him because he was asked to do a uh last supper for a for one of the um
one of the towns in Italy. Now, I'm going to show you the picture that was taken the day after he died in February of 1987. There he was. He had accepted a commission to paint the Last Supper to
be displayed in Milan across the street from the Santa Maria de la Chinakolo where the original was kept. So they wanted to have a an old one but they also wanted a modern definition a modern definition of it. Right now
he created more than 100 images of this work. 20 very large canvases, smaller canvases and works on paper. And you could see there he was busy working on it. And you can also see a lot of stuff
in his in his uh in his studio. And of course, all that was packed up and the majority of it was uh auctioned off. Now, um now remember also in addition to
uh his interest in religion and his faith faith uh he also collected you know uh cookie jars, folk art, kit and never threw anything away. In other words, if if he if he if he looked at it and he thought it was cute or whatever,
he bought it up. Now, I'm going to also show you one of the last supper paintings that he did. No, this is No, I'm sorry. This is All right. Now, this is again one of his his um
iterations because he was working with it. He was deciding what to do. And so he put all these pictures there. He worked on and off for a year using a line drawing from a book. In other words, he followed out the did the line drawing just the way just the way Leon
just the way Leonardo did. And then he would just make his little little adjustments here or there. All the reproductions were too dark and he needed an easily read drawing to closely follow the outlines of the work. He called this his plagiarist style. He
agreed that he was plagiarizing. Okay? He was very all right. Very very upfront about it. All the details and features remain except for the tapestries and the architectural architectural setting. All right.
Now, this work constructed very much like the drawing from the Leonardo's notebook contains multiple image images, some more finished than others. Okay. And uh in the next Wait a minute. Is it on here? I've got to look at here. See the fish logo.
No. Yes. The fish logo. There's the fish logo. Okay. Now, we know that the fish logo was the um symbol in the in the in the um days of the Roman Empire that you were a Christian because it it was kind
of a a a sub shall we say underground uh movement because um they um uh the Christian faith was not uh was not part of the you know the Roman the Romans believed in
the the many gods and and and and uh but the Christian faith was one God and they were persecuted as you know and that was one way that one one Christian could identify themselves to another Christian
if they had a fish or if they uh just drew a fish on the ground or on made a a mark like a fish. Now um now the reference the the reference to
Christ to um re remark remarks uh is the is the remark of the of the fishing of the apostles when they were fishing and and he said why are you fishing he said why don't you become fishers of men okay
now the fish symbol as I said was an early symbol of referential to Christ as the son of God also eating fish on Friday. The ca that Catholic observance was observance was always carried out until the Vatican council a number of
years ago said you don't have to eat fish on Friday. You can eat it anytime you want. Okay. Now this let's look at the next one here. All right. Now this one, Warhol's Last Supper, wise potato chip in 1986.
Now you would first look at say wise potato chips. Why are you putting that on this painting? All right. Now the arch there, the architecture there is is an architectural setting skewed to one side with a suggestion of tapestries and
coffering of the ceiling. The figures become monumental as they fill the available space. But the wise logo is placed where Judas would be with Peter. Judas and Peter sat next to each other at the and the at the la in the last supper. And u the owl is looking at
Christ the symbol of wisdom. Thus a commercial logo is superimposed upon a religious masterpiece to give it more meaning. It's the sac this is you would call it sacred and profane. But Warhol did not intend to create a sacrilege.
Rather he used a trivial symbol to emphasize Christ and as the embodiment of all wisdom because as I told you he was a strict Catholic. So he wasn't making fun wasn't making fun of the painting or the the Catholic Church. All right. Now let's look at this. This is
even more interesting I think. Okay. Here is one. The last supper with the dove. First of all, there was a superimposition of the dove soap logo above the head of Christ, which is the symbol of peace, of course. Then the GE
logo. What's that there? What's that there for? Quote, I am the light of the world. He who believeth in me, were he dead, yet yet shall he live. All right, it's a symbol that I am the light of the world. Christ come into the world to
bring peace and light. Now, what about that 59 cent logo in the Bisco package? What's that got to do with it? Well, what's inside those? You remember these in the biscos? It was always Yeah. What's inside? Cookies. What are cookies? They're sweet. Okay. So, that's
the symbol there of sweetness, of kindness. The symbols while appearing to trivialize the work actually adds some drama to it and more more. In other words, he's trying to take from the 20th
century and put it into something that was done 600 years ago and still has meaning. Okay. Now, this is one of the last ones he did, and I'm going to show you this. This is called Last Supper
Pink, 1986. This last supper was in the church of Amsterdam from October 6th to the November 11th in 2020 2012. This is way after he had died. Pink is the color of a baby, right? Always a cute little pink
baby. But in the pink, some of you say, "How do you feel?" Oh, I'm in the pink. You wouldn't say you're in the blue. You say you're in the pink because to show you are well and happy. Thus, one is happy in following the path of Christ. Now, the next person we're going to talk
about is a well contemporary of uh Rick Roy Likensstein because I told you about what happened with the Sydney Janice Gallery. Sydney Janice wouldn't wouldn't uh uh um sign up uh Borhal because he'd already signed up Likenstein. Okay, so
let's look at Roy Likenstein. Whoops. This was a picture from 1963 and with one of his um paintings behind from from the comics called Wham. All right? You know, you get those if you have ever seen those old comics that wham, bam,
slam, you know, and and they would put it put it in a in a balloon and they would splash it all over the the page. Now, he was born in New York and was taking classes with Reginal Marsh by the age of 16. Now, Regginal Marsh is an artist from the 1930s, okay? During the
depression, he was drafted now, he was drafted into World War II and and when he was in he was landed up in Paris and he went to Picasso Studio, but he was too shy to ring the bell. Okay. In 1951,
he was a graduate of the Ohio of Ohio State University. Obviously, came back from the war and took advantage of the um the this this the soldiers uh ability to get to go to college and and which is a wonderful thing because we actually
had a large cadre of educated people afterward. It was one of the best things the government has ever done. He remained in he graduated from Ohio in 1951 and with a masters in fine arts and he remained in Ohio uh doing window
displays and designs for the Republic Steel. Okay. But he didn't there isn't wasn't that much more in Ohio. So he was a frequent visitor to New York trying to find his style. Finally in 1960s he's teaching at Rutgers University. He
taught at Ruters for a number of years. Uh under the influence of Alan Capro and Klaus Oldenberg who were already uh uh artists. Capro told him he said he couldn't teach color from a saison only
from the b from a bubblegum rapper. You and you know what those bazooka bubblegum rappers looked like. All right. In 1961 he's still searching for a style. He began doing comic book pictures and was signed by Leo Castelli.
In 19 in a 1963 interview, he said he wanted to make a painting so despicable despicable so that nobody would want to hang it. Wham was part of the cam combat series in in comic books when they had wars and whatnot and the planes are
crashing and you know and th those comic artists were really really fabulous. Now in he talked about the comic books and he said a comic book artist intends to
depict and I intend to unify. I use comic book scenes for purely formal reasons. In other words, give me a scene from a comic book and I'm going to I'm going to play with it. I'm going to make something different out of it. Okay? And of course very large different and very
large. Now this this was the first one he actually did here. He claims it was the first one. Look Mickey from 1961. Likenstein's first comic work supposedly was challenged by his son who asked him
if he could paint as well as a comic artist. When asked what what prompted him to do this work, he said one word, desperation. He was 38 and still searching for a style to express what he wanted to say.
He was to adopt the comic style of painting with black outlines, flatness, simplicity, strong color modulations using a lot of red and yellow and black. Okay? and with
black outlines, of course, flatness, simplicity, and a strong color with no modulation except for the dots, those bend dots. Well, they that's what they use in comics. And so, he did the same thing he would do there and stipple these dots on the paintings. And that
took a long time, by the way. It really did. You have to be careful because you can have just so much paint on on your brush, otherwise you'll you'll get a lot of ink there. Okay. Now Mickey is is his alter ego. He realized
he was on the edge like Mix like Mickey is and could dive over artistically cuz the Mickey said, "Look at I look what I've got." Well, what he got was the the the um uh the the fly the the uh hook is hooked into his coat and if he bends
over anymore, he's going to fall into the water. Now, and he said of this painting, "The subject of the painting is me," unquote. Now, here you may remember this. The Mount Airy Large always had an ad in the
New York Times uh about come and join us uh for the holiday or whatever or the summertime. This goes back to 1961. Mount Airy Lodge in Pennsylvania. the ad was transformed because it because the
the the the um focus on the ad was a girl with a with a ball ready to throw it. Now the but he focused he focused much closer onto the girl. She is shapier and he shortened her arms and
cut off the top of the ball. The mouth shape however echoes the ball. No longer an ad, she could now appear in an Archie comic. He transforms. Yet the source of the image remains identifiable because people who read the New York
Times knew this was the Mount Airy Lodge Lodge ad. All right. Now, here's something else we can easily We know what that is, right? Well, it's it was called I Love Liberty from 1962.
And there is Miss Liberty. She is looking much more sculptural and monumental than she does. And thanks to the black, the strong black there you get with the with the striped background, you get a cubist volume and
and uh it's in shadow. It's in very very deep shadow and um oh and it goes back to the work of other artists in the 1930s who who uh such as Sheieler and Demuth who f who whose
favorite subjects were factories, the interior of factories etc. And it gives um she looks if it wasn't for that crown, we would have or or the or the um
um the torch she holds, we would have a little bit of a problem identifying her, wouldn't we? Yeah. But the other two things give her away. And of course, it's done in a comic book style. and um the um lines in the back and and you get by you get diagonal lines, you have
vertical lines, you have lines going horizontally. It's very very cubist. You see them vertical, the uh horizontal, the vertical, the uh and the ones going going. It's just fabulous. It really is.
And it looks like it's being lit from underneath. It looks like an underneath lighting because you've got the heavy shadows. Now, here is something he called Masterpiece from 1962. The comic romance series were done as he
was going through a divorce with his wife. She had become an alcoholic and he had to support two small sons who were still quite young. This work was in Castelli's window in Likenstein's first
show there. The alter eagle Brad is on the threshold of success with an adoring, perfect girlfriend. Can you ask for anything more? This is of course an expression of his wish fulfillment that he had. And most of his women look like
that. They're blonde, got big eyes, per little noses, and always very, very nice red lips. Okay. Yeah. Okay, now here is the next one. Drowning girl. Well, she doesn't she doesn't have a a lipstick
on, but she certainly has the per little nose and the um and she is look at the water. She is He even shows the splashing of the water and the water is completely enveloping
her. Now, this is derived from a 1962 comic uh comic strip called Secret Hearts. Heartthrob romances with a stumbling block that was resolved by the end of the story. Likenstein foses focuses very closely on this. We don't
see the boyfriend who was off to the right. He he actually removed him from the uh from the frame. Okay. And um his name by the way in the in the in the comic strip was Mal which means Mal male
malnutrition bad. All right. So he eliminated that and he changed it to the name of Brad. Not Mal but Brad. Okay. And omitted the reference to the cramp in the balloon cuz the balloon also said that she had a cramp and she was drowning. Thus suggesting that she was
dying for for Brad's love. All right. He also stylized the waves that wash completely around her. And you know this kind of almost like a a whirlpool and she's going down, you see. And he demonstrated how easy it was to tr to
quote transform a cartoon style into an art style. He also said his work was anti- contemplative. In other words, you don't have to spend a lot of time looking at it. You know immediately what the message is. Okay? Just like in the comic book, you knew when you saw two
two planes crashing and going bam. Well, you know what's happening then. You don't have you don't have to tell anybody have to tell you what it's all about. All right. Now, here is another one. Another one of his very pretty girls. Okay. It's called
Revery from 1965. Now, that reminded me of Hogi Carmichael. considered by many to be um in my revery to be the best pop song ever written. And he wrote an awful lot of other good stuff, too. It's it's wonderful to listen to Hogi Carmichael's
music. A pop singer here who was yearning look suggests a lost love is turned into a work of art. The close focus again, the invariably blondes with perposses and heart-shaped lips. Okay.
Now he said, "When I have used cartoon images, I use them ironically to raise the question, quote, why would anyone want to do this with modern painting?" Unquote. So he was in a sense um
criticizing himself. Okay, I'm I'm doing it, but why would anybody want to do this anyway? Okay, now here's the next one. Now, this one goes back the the the the visual goes back to the Statue of
Liberty because look what he's done here. He retains his cartoon style, but he he enters a cubisphrase using imagery from industry like cogs, wheels, smoke stacks, and a production line that
appears to be helmeted soldiers. Now remember this was the this was already in 1968 and the war with Vietnam had has had uh was out was grown out. Now he served in the war. He he served in the
war of second world war sometimes only a mile from en enemy lines and perhaps these images and his war cartoon paintings came from those memories because again you can see it looks like there's a cog here and there and draw
bribing and you see a smoke stack there. So it was all it's all related to armaments and guns and ways to kill other people. Okay. Yeah.
This this is his still life with pallet from 1972. this. He did a series of five drawings and put it in a folder and it was marketed in the 1970s.
Um, and I believe the five the five pieces the five uh uh they they were they were reproduced uh you know manually or automatically and I believe the set cost
something like $100. Well, it would probably cost a heck of a lot more today. All right. Now with this Likenstein proves that he really knew his art history which he continued to prove. The composition is
derived from and I'm going to show you the derivation. Okay. The composition is derived from the Dutch 17th century uh still life painting with the drapery the arrangement of the objects with the scroll showing the edge of the table.
Note the frame canvas. Note the frame canvas there. It and they put he put a a a drape behind there and um the frame canvas reversed showing the stretcher. In other words, this right here, this
has been reversed. You don't see the picture. You just see the you just see the frame. Okay? The frame that on the back now again and he used the the drapery in the back. You will see in many um um
stilllife paintings they use draperies behind it to emphasize the figures that the things that were in the front. Now the framed canvas as I said is reversed to show the stretcher. Another conceit from American trump uh mar American
trump uh it sold in 2010 for $6,800,000. Now I'm going to show you another still life that he did. All right. This one is called Still Life with Lobster from 1974. One of a series of six lithographs that
he did on paper with the influence of Mikas Matis Picasso and the Dutch painters. The fishing net partially conceals the window with a pulley. In other words, this is this is all supposed to be about boating. All right. And catching fish. The fish. Now the
table has shells on it, starfish, a keianti bottle, a net, and a lobster. Now there were two mismatched chairs with hanging seascapes. Now there is a twist of rope here off the table. Okay,
in most in mo and the the twist of rope has been colored yellow. In most of the Dutch paintings when they had a still when there was a still life there would be a lemon that was partially unparl partially un cut so that the the the um
ride would uh go off the edge of the table and twirl off the edge. So he picks that up by using a rope that is twirled. You see? So he he he he reinvented for the 20th century what
this 17th and 18th century had done. And I'm going to show you the two pictures that could have inspired him. First of all on the on the left there is a painting by Matis. We see a flat
tabletop which is actually almost looks as if everything that's on the table could be sliding off, doesn't it? Sure. Now with a view of a window and a patterns that may influ with and the patterning may be the influence of Matis
and Picasso with a wine bottle. All right. Now you also see here that the profusion of objects with the uh if you look here there's the lobster with
the and there is the lemon the lemon the unpeeled lemon and there's this huge display behind it. There's there's a a fruit and there is this beautiful glass vessel here and there is some apples and
there is there's one one tumbler that's been put has fallen over. So we know that he he absorbed this but he changed it and put it into his comic style. And
as a matter of fact, I really wish he had done more of them because that would have been tremendously interesting to look at these old older paintings and reinvent them in the comic style of the 20th century. But he he did a number of
them, but I think he should have done a whole lot more because it would have been terribly interesting because it and it did show that he knew his art history without a doubt. Now um but the composition the composition of
what he did was a very lively composition. Now um the one of the ne the next one here is girl with a tear number one. He this is the first one he did number one. There must have been some others. Okay. In
1977 this was the influence of Dolly and surrealism. If you remember the melting clocks of Dolly and all right. So the all he has is the eye. This tear which is a real long tear. It was like a
balloon coming out of her eye and the just a suggestion of the blonde hair. Okay. Because he liked blondes. And um and in the back there is a vista, a wide vista. The now the objects are out of proportion or parts are missing which we
see also in Dolly. The blonde hair and the single eye with the balloon teardrop suggest his weeping women of the 1960s. The deep shadows are created also. There's a shadow of the with the the the
um eyebrow and the shadows the the look at the shadow that the tear is producing a black shadow. Okay, which is kind of not real. I mean that's kind of funny right now. Deep shadows created with
hair and elongated teardrops that fall suously. What was the inspiration? Well, there was an inspiration and I'm going to show it to you. This This is Dolly uh Salvador Dolly's eye of time
brooch from 1949. Dolly did this piece of jewelry for his wife. He authorized the jeweler to make a few copies. Okay. In July of 2013, there was a one of these on sale for um
96,000 pounds. Okay. Dolly did only about 20 pieces of jewelry, but he was also the one who suggested to um Scaparelli that she she was doing a gown. He said, "Why
don't you put a lobster in the front?" And I've sold I saw the lobster gown in Paris. There was a Scaparelli uh uh show um in in 2022. Thank God I went there and I saw the Scaparelli show and there
was this the white e satin evening gown with a lobster painted on the front and Scaparelli did it because Dolly had suggested it to her. Okay. Now Dolly as I said only did about 20 pieces of jewelry. Now
the watch the uh watch was expected to sell for $16,000 but the rarity bid the piece up to £96,000 in England. It was sold in England. Now also at that time w and even right now winding watches have
grown in value. So if you've got your grandfather's watch and it's not a wall fam it's something better and it was a winding watch take it to a take it to a dealer and see what it's worth. Okay. Now, the by the way, the this was sold to a US collector. Even though it was
both sold in England, it was sold to US collector. And bids came in from around the world. They thought it would go for $16,000 and it went for 96,000 pounds, not dollars, which is more than, as you know, the the pound is worth more
than than uh the dollar. All right. Now, all right. Now here stepping out the title has a double meaning the couples are couple are stepping out and lit likenstein is
stepping out with a new abstract cubal cubis style. The man's face is in it shows the influence of Picasso and Matise while the companions features is a bit fragmented and rearranged.
You can see how it's been rearranged. We we have we see the teardrop again, but this time the teardrop is an eye that has been okay. And um but we still recognize her as the blonde, but she well
yeah, the eye also is partially her nose at the same time. So So he's he's in other words, he's he's playing with this and he's reimagining it. Okay. Now
by the end of the 1970s Likin Likenstein Likenstein's work had become uh more more abstract and he left the cartoon sources behind but not the cartoon style. Okay. I I as I said I really wish
he had done more cartoons of the old masters because it's just fabulous. Um, and I once was at um I saw one of these one of the paintings that he did with um again it was a still life at uh at
Christy's and I sat in that on that chair on that sofa and I could not tear myself away. It was a painting that just I just loved and uh I think it went for like $2 or $3 million. But oh my, it was
just fabulous because I knew the source of the painting. Somebody else who didn't have any art, you know, would not know where it came from, but I knew the source and it was just fabulous. Okay. Now,
deep in thought. Now, here is here is this is his is this his self-portrait? It's called deep in thought from 1980. And I'm thinking maybe this is his self-portrait. Man with a pen contemplates his next move. Cubist
arrangements of planes, stripes of varying width, strong primary co colors and shadows and features reduced to a minimum of lines, flat with no sense of volume at all. the figure, the fa face
of the figure is totally flat and part of it is green and on the opposite side it's got the horiz the ver vertical stripes and um but it sold in 2010 for 1,986,000. Okay. And it would probably go for more
more. This was back in 2010. And all right. Uh art has um I think art has gone up faster than gold has gone up quite frankly. But anyway, uh this is you know totally flat. It's totally but he's still using the comic
books and the lines and the bend dots and whatnot and little but he he changes in other words he's taking taking Picasso or Brock and he's turning Picasso and Brock into a comic se in turn into a
painting of a comic figure. All right. Now here's another one here again. Girardano Dick Girardano a comic comic artist did the left and he
did the painting of derived from it on the right. Dick Gio Jamo Dick Gordano's comic fame came from something called strange suspense stories of 1964. Likenstein uses it as a jumping off
point for the brushstroke series of paintings in 1965. He the closeup focuses on the emphasis on the brush pattern and also left by the paint stroke. Maybe the paint stroke would be would be uh dribbling down and
whatnot. But he uses saturated reds which give it a sense of blood dripping if you look closely and and um and he went back and forth and then all of a sudden all the way down. All right.
Now, here is another brush stroke. This one is a is an actual sculpture. Likenstein began a series of sculptures based on his brushstroke paintings. This example is in Portland, Oregon. And it was done only a year before he died of
MRSA after checking into a hospital with walking pneumonia. And of course, he died in 1987 or 80. He died within about a year or two of of um of Warhol, but he he and he
had walking pneumonia and didn't realize it and went to the hospital and died within a week. All right, now let's look at somebody else named Jasper John's. Here is Jasper John's photo photograph.
He was born in Georgia and brought up by his grandparents in South Carolina. He spent three seme semesters at the University of South Carolina and in 1949 came to New York City and went to the Parson School. He knew Rousenberg and he
uh Roy Roy Rousenberg and he were lovers. All right. So that's neither here nor there. But he worked with him on displays in again in Bonut Teller and Tiffany's. Bonwit teller was always a very very forwardlooking store
by hiring the these artists who did wonderful displays. How many remember Bonwer? It wasn't that a wonderful store. It was the best and I miss it to this day. Absolutely. If you wanted a decent dress or if you were going to a
funeral and you needed you go that you went there and you found exactly what you needed. It was just wonderful. Unfortunately, it's gone. Okay. Um now he was also influenced by the composer John Cage. He did he does not he did not
like uh the label of a pop artist. He was earlier than they were and he said quote I was trying to arrive at some kind of objective objective clarity. Now in this here it is target with four
faces from 1955. This is quite early. John's had worked many themes during his long career. His medium here is enostic. Now that was also used by the Egyptians and you will see you could see enostic paintings if you went to the metropolitan art because enostic deals
with paint but also wax and you you mix it together and then you get a very very textural kind of kind of uh when when you look at the work it looks very textured. It looks very scumbled. if you know what I mean. It's not smooth. It's
not smooth at all. And that's one of the the nice parts of of looking at Jasper John's because of the texture right there. Uh the hot beeswax is mixed with color and sometimes linseed oil to thin it out a little bit. Okay. The use of
heat lamps extend the work for the working time for the artist in Cosic allowed for a textured tactile surface. the this en enigmatic work is emphasized by the four wooden faces that at the top. Now there's a target. Now you're
going to shoot the arrow with the target. You're going to shoot it at the four p faces at the top of the of the painting which are which are partially um uh partially you could not see. Okay. Now
you are tempted to want to lift the that up to to to finish the painting. But of course you you you can't do it. All right. Now, quote, "The meaning is something people find or construct or enact more than it is something that is
offered to people." In other words, you've got to look at it and and say, "Well, how would it be?" Look, look, if I could just move those and show those faces. Okay? And and actually, the faces are all basically the same. They're all the same face. Now here is one the one one thing that
he was famous of the three flags from 1958. Now his work was hailed as a viable alternative to abstract expressionism. His targets and flags again recognizable objects worked in bands or in whirls.
These three images carefully superimposed upon each other. The flatness of each one each individual painting thus becomes three-dimensional. All right. And he also uses in costic the same kind of uh mixture of beeswax
and and paint and a little bit of linseed oil to give a texture to the to the flags. Now, and so we get an interplay of painted versus painted illusion versus objective reality. John's work for me anyway. Whenever I go
to see a John's exhibition, it always sets off music in my head. For some reason, normally the music is that of John Phillips Susa and I don't know why. I'm standing there and
all of a sudden it goes off in my and I don't know why. I honestly don't. But that's the music that goes off in my head. What? Now, now this is not meant to be a patriotic
image. He did the first one in the late 1950s just after the McCarthy era because he was also realizing what Joseph McCarthy was doing. He was
hauling everybody into the uh into the uh uh the the uh hearings until finally someone said to him, "Uh, Senator, have you no shame?" Was the woman that said that?
Yeah. Yeah. Really? It was Yeah. All right. Now, critics call them these sub subser sub subversive. But John said there was only a degree of irony. He also noted
that now this image is very precious. Here's another one. And and this one you've really got to engage yourself with called false start. John said the idea for this came while he was having a drink at the Cedar Tavern. A true
masterwork, enigmatic intellectual work, stencils used by children. Again, he took something from a kid just like just like u uh Roy Likenstein took out took the kids comic books, right? Stencils used by children. I'm sure we used it when you you were in school. You had to
draw a wrap of New Jersey and then you had you have the stencil to put in New Jersey. Okay. Now transformed the int enigmatic intellectual work was transformed as he plays with our perceptions. Orange is
not really orange. Gray is red while parts of some works are covered over by slabs of paint. Re recalls Gilbert Sullivan's HMS Pinaphor. Things are seldom what they seem. Skim milk masquerades as cream. So you see and and
you can you stand over it and you're trying to read some of this stuff and orange, but it's not but it's not red. It's white. No, wait a minute. Red. All right. Um white. That's not white. That's red. and with a with a yellow background and it it looks splashy, but
it really it really catches you because you're trying to parse it out. And he did now he did another one very much like this and all right. Well, here. All right. Now, there was another one that I wanted to
show you. Wait a minute. Here. There was another one I'm going to come up with now. It should be in here. Three flags full star. Aha. Yeah, it's it's a couple more coming in. Okay. Make sure I have it.
All right. Now, Valentine ale in 1960. Like Warhol, John's took everyday objects called throwaways, and by reproducing them and placing them on a plinth, he turned them into icons of the 1960s. Valentine beer, as you know, is
no longer made. those. If you have a Valentine can, well, it's now become an icon of the the 1950s. Okay? And um and remember it was made in Newark of the Valentine family. The Valentine House is still there, but not the Valentine
Brewery. Okay? Now, there was no longer produced. Thus, it is a momento of the past. He also fooled around with numbers. Not only numbers like what I like the the uh the color and whatnot
but actual numbers superimposing them one on each other. The first one is from 1960 0 through 9. John's would select a subject and work it through it various permutations until he was satisfied or
had run out of ideas. Okay. Lithography is another vehicle the pop artists use to a myriad reproductions. It's analogous to pro to production lines that create identical objects like a production line for for for cars. Okay.
Um the the Tesla cars I think come in four colors and maybe in one thing the the it's going through and they're painting all all of those red and then the other line they're painting all of them white, you know. So, okay. So, and
you try to parse out if you could if you could pick up. I mean, of course, you can see the eight. I can also see a five over there. Okay. Um, gee whiz, I can't see the one, but I can see a five and I
can see a one, a five, and an eight. And maybe, of course, this could be a three right here. So, he's just trying to fooling fooling around with it. and but it catches your eye and you now look here's another one too
here now this one this one is a super imposition of different kinds of different colors now the textured oil here again it's in it's enostic we are challenged to pick out the individual numbers that are sup superimposed on each other but we have wonderful
patterns and swirls are created and the work seems to vibrate John stayed with the subject extracting everything he could from it before going on to something else. Sometime these images creep in again as we shall see. But again, this is was done in paint and
it's very thick and it's again difficult to parse out. But you stand there trying to pick pick out something. Um and it this is even this is harder than the previous one. The previous one you
could see some of the lines. You could figure out where the three was or a five was or a one. But this is much more difficult to do because it's layered layers of paint one on each other. All right. Now, let's do this.
Now, the next one I'm going to show you map. It's a map of the wow United States. Although it doesn't look like the kind of map we normally see. Now, this is another identifiable objects. a map found in elementary classrooms and
the image is recognizable, but it's also hidden between all the layers of paint. He uses those stencils again and various colors for each state. Our memory of what our map looks like completes the painting. So you visualize it in your
brain and you look at that and you say, "Yep, that's that's a map of the United States." Okay. The observer is does complicit with John's. He expected you to do he said he's doing his work but he expected you also to do your homework.
Okay. So uh a a quote was was uh applied to this quote secret code to classified information. And here let me see let me see if I can find New Jersey here. Here's
Pennsylvania. This is This is the Atlantic Ocean. This is Pennsylvania. So, New Jersey might be somewhere. Oh, right about here. I think New Jersey would be okay. So, it's it's
Yeah, it's uh here's Nevada. Uh here's Oregon. It's Washington. You see, the the larger states he was able to get more, but but New Jersey is so small that he couldn't he couldn't put he couldn't put the whole word in. and others of others of
them too are kind of hazed out. But if if you if you know this is Arizona, then you're going to be pretty sure this is Florida. I mean, if California, okay, Arizona or or New Mexico and and this and if it's Oregon, then this on below
it has to be California. So, um it's it's a way of parsing it parsing it out. No. Okay, the next one. This one makes me laugh. It's called the critic sees. Now,
the critic is wearing a very large pair of eyeglasses and also he has bags under his eyes and he has bags on his eyes. So, one wonders how much he can actually see. And John's
is making it's making fun of the critic. Okay. now or is this how John sees the critics? Are their judgments clouded by an inability to see what he is trying to do? It's witty also and it's a comment
on critics and their oftentimes absurd judgments. This by the way is owned by a man named Steven Cohen. He was the securities and exchange he worked in in a security and exchange commission. He
was a hedge fund manager whose firm was fined $616 million and he was investigated by the Security and Exchange Commission. Okay, he had his own uh hedge fund and but he still got the he still got the work of art. Okay.
Now, but so I put I put that in there just to show you that people do buy this do buy these works and the and the the rich ones will buy something like this and it but it is very very funny. He he did a couple of
iterations of it. This is only one but but it was always in a frame and it was a few might he might have changed a little bit on each of them but again he was making a comment about critics who sometimes don't know much about art.
Now here is something else. This is a picture. John's original Sverin sculpture had been done in the 1960s. Within a few years the can shape had changed and Saver was no longer the brand. So suddenly you've got another
icon. The monotype painting that this was painted directly on a plate of gl glass plate with ink and applying paper before the ink dries and you would pick it off. This is the number this is
number one of two um two uh uh pictures that he got because he used he did it on glass. It was still wet. He put the paint, picked it up, took another piece of paper, put it
down, brings it up. But you have less paint on the second picture than you have on the first picture. Okay? Because the first picture has absorbed most of the paint. Now, um the second image then is called a ghost
print and it is repetitive and also the repetitive handprints. He must have gone and put handprints in before he before he used used the uh the first piece of paper. Now
very very interesting uh to to do this and especially with a glass plate and then you clean the plate off and then you can start all over again when you do another one. And uh so these this is is iconic because it was an experimental
kind of thing to do but also he was taking something which again we know the the savverin carton the saver can was always shaped differently and saver coffee is no longer in existence. So
it's it's really become a double icon if you know what I mean. Now, the next person we're going to talk about is one of my favorite people because he makes you smile, and that's Coons. All right. All right. Now, here is Coon's balloon.
Balloon flower from 1982. No, I'm sorry. Balloon flower from 1995. All right. Does pop art exist? Yep. This is an example of of one of five unique colors sold at Christy's in
2010 for $16 million. Jeff Coons is the one who did the did this. Now these are made from stainless steel with a transparent quoting a transparent coating. And he
took familiar objects such as a dog, a heart, a rabbit was used by Coons to create a walkound sculpture that reflects the world around them because the because of the paint he uses, the reflections from across the street or
reflections from the garden will show in there. And they are just they're just phenomenal. I I think they're fabulous. I really really do. Now he also did a famous sculpture a number of them called
puppy. Now here is puppy. puppy on the left is 1999 and that was the um um the um in Spain in Bil Bao, Spain where the
uh Bilbao Museum is that the one on the left that's the that was the puppy in 1999. The one on the right however is from 2012. Now, they are monumental in more ways than one because they are 43 feet tall
to the tip of the ears with which I found out 25 tons of soil with an internal irrigation system. 25 tons of soil. And when I found this out, I said, "This guy, this guy is not only an artist,
he's also an engineer to be able to put this together and figure out how to do it." Now, um I was once in New York and uh by by the way this is the Gary this the one on the left of the Bel Bao Museum as you
know is Frank Garry. Okay. And I think the New York one was very nice. But this one has more character because in New York they use nothing but green and he looked darling there. He was absolutely darling. But this one has more of a
character. He would be quite a scamp, I think, if he were a real puppy. He would be quite a scamp. Okay. Now, I'm going to show you another two pictures here because I was lucky enough to have a friend who used a jeweler in the
Rockefeller Center in one of the buildings and I went with her to New York one day and u he uh he I said, "Oh, that the the the puppy downstairs is so cute." He said, "Maryanne, why don't you go in my office and look down and so I
took this from his office and looking down into the Rockefeller Center, which was and and I decided I had to put it in this cuz it's so gorgeous." And this is after you come downstairs. Okay, but this was and you could see how darling it was. It's a shame they don't leave it
there. It really is a shame that that there is not a space in New York to put a puppy in a little park so the parents could take their little children there. The kids go crazy for it. I don't know why somebody doesn't come up with just
all you all you would need is a small, you know, and it would be so it would be something you could do with a child in New York. What can you do with a child in New York today? You cannot take them down to whatever because God in heaven,
you know, but that would be such a nice thing. Um, if I had a lot of money, I' i'd have buy one of these things and have it put in New York. What the kids? I I swear to God. Anyway, uh, maybe I should suggest that to Michael Bloomberg. Maybe Michael Bloomberg would
I don't I I might know somebody who knows Michael Bloomberg and we could I think I'm going to call you know I'm going to call that guy. I know that man and I am sure he knows Michael Bloomberg and I'm going to ask him to ask Michael Bloomberg why
doesn't he do that for the children of New York. And I also saw how they watered this. They have like a what looks like, you know, a a a ladder that goes all the way up. And they had a hose,
a real long hose, and they were watering the plants. And like I said, 25 tons of of soil lead needs an awful lot of water. You can't use a little watering can, but they were using a hose. And to
keep it fresh, you have to keep it fresh, otherwise it would turn brown, especially in a in a hot summer day. So anyway, I wanted to show this cuz I just love this stuff right here. Now, I'm going to show you something else from another artist. You may not heard of him. His name is Will Cotton.
And Cotton has taken a very jaundice look at our country. And when I show you the picture, you will know what I'm talking about. Oops. Leave a hang. Huh? This is called
Landfill from 2012. Will Cotton draws his inspiration from grocery store products of candy, cookies, and baked goods. His titles are sarcastic. Here, the Landfall consists
of donuts that look like dumped tires. The brownies, tarts, and cherries look like industrial waste. and the dumping of the and dumped into sludge which is chocolate. All this will soon decompose
into a mass of sugary chocolates and cream. This could also be called rather than landfill belly fill. Could it not? But it's very different. He does stuff like this. And it's very meticulous. And you could see how
meticulous each each detail is. Now I'm going to show you something else. Again, a commentary on our society. What he's telling us here in the next one is sex cells. There
is the brunette. The influence of Wayne Thibo who who uh you painted cakes in a in a uh in the window of a of a of a pastry shop. But here we have a rather
beautiful brunette surrounded by sweet treats. Both are equally tempting. This is a comment on modern misia using sex to sell almost anything even even a cupcake. Okay. So, and I I included
these two because I feel that he is really really he's got the pulse of America. He's got the pulse of America on his hand. He really really does. So anyway, we are now at the end and I hope to see you again on another lovely day
and I want to thank you so much for coming here and listening to me and I hope to see you all again in a short time. Thank you.