ART GALLERY


Photograph by Robert McKeever, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery
©Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, N. Y. & JASPAR, Tokyo, 2013 E0434
Girl in Mirror
The mirror motif was traditionally used in European art to create a multi-layered pictorial space, with various allegorical meanings. For Lichtenstein as well, the mirror was an important theme. In Girl in Mirror, the skin of the blonde girl, whose face is smiling back at us through the mirror, is done in Ben-Day dots (halftone printing), and the reflection in the mirror thus exhibits a typical comic-strip type stylized technique. The reflective finish of New York subway signs was Lichtenstein's inspiration for this work using an industrial enamel-on-steel technique. It is one of the series of close-ups done 1963-65 of girls' faces from magazine and comic-strip images. It also represents Lichtenstein's early interest in mirrors.