Toward the start of the swinging sixties, Roy Lichtenstein created two versions of this painting.
Aptly named ‘In the Car’.
Seventeen years later the National Galleries of Scotland bought the larger version of the piece
here it is, for £100,000.
The galleries were greeted with uproar that so much taxpayers’ money
could have been spent on something so
simple.
Keith Hartley: It was the money that caused the controversy.
Holly Prentice: You could have bought X, Y, and Z, rather than just buying that one.
Luke Edwards: I think it cost 100 grand.
Keith Hartley: £100,000 being spent on a blown up version
Of a comic.
Fiona Menzies: Why are you buying a comic?
I could paint that.
Narrator: But by 2005, Lichtenstein’s stock had skyrocketed
and at auction, the smaller version of the painting was sold for 16.2 million dollars.
His art now well and truly iconic.
'In the Car' like so much of Lichtenstein’s work, is a huge recreation of one small comic panel.
In this case an anthology from DC Comics called “Girl’s Romances”
an issue of which cost just 10 cents.
So from these humble origins, why has in the car become such a valuable and iconic painting?
'In the Car' is a classic example of Lichtenstein’s work.
Luke Edwards: Probably one of the most iconic Lichtensteins around really.
Holly Prentice: It's bright, colourful, you're going to recognise it.
It plays with visual and gendered stereotypes of American culture.
Keith Hartley: An almost retro-camp feeling.
Of looking back at perhaps a feeling of nostalgia.
Back to a sort of heroic age when America was growing in the post-war period.
It depicts the square jawed, slicked back and suited, idealised American man.
The glamorous, independent, stylish American blonde -
sitting in a bright red car.
The expressions are exaggerated; they are dramatic yet mundane.
Keith Hartley: There's a sort of a psychological battle going on between the two figures.
And you wonder what she is thinking
and what he is thinking.
Holly Prentice: The start of a conversation for people looking at it.
Because you're trying to fill in those gaps.
Narrator: Like Andy Warhol, Lichtenstein’s work is all about reproduction,
and images of American culture.
Many of his frames drew from the same series of romantic comics
a series that perpetuated the gender roles and stereotypes of the time
with tales of tales of handsome, untrustworthy rogues
beautiful women
and melodramatic, doomed romances.
But it’s not simply a recreation of the panel.
Keith Hartley: It's much more complicated than that.
The simple fact of doing things on a much larger scale
makes you aware of the relationship of one area of blocked colour
to another area.
Narrator: Lichtenstein takes the image, exaggerates and oversaturates the colours
Luke Edward: He's obviously dialled it up,
so you normally get quite hard lines, and very, very strong colours.
Holly Prentice: It's quite minimalist in colours
but that just makes you go, 'wow'.
Narrator: Stripping them back to five garish hues
and commenting on American culture’s contemporary brashness.
As Roy himself said:
He strips out the text and simplifies the linework, drawing attention to the dynamic
action lines that give energy to the piece.
But the real genius is in the recontextualisation of the image in the first place -
scaled up and moved from the world of entertainment
to the world of art.
So, 'In the Car' captured something essential of American culture.
But why did it initially become so famous?
Pop art’s massive impact on the art world was really the result of a huge sense of...
controversy.
The movement was a rejection of abstract expressionism
made famous by the likes of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko
a style that Lichtenstein had previously worked in.
Keith Hartley: I mean pop art really I think was partly a reaction against the
sort of over-subjectivity, and almost arbitrary nature
of abstract expressionism.
Narrator: By contrast, pop art was a much more direct response to capitalist America.
Holly Prentice: It's got that sort of design, marketing response.
Fiona Menzies: A parody of commercialisation and advertising.
Keith Hartley: A feeling that artists should pay more attention to
what was happening in the world about them.
Narrator: Lichtenstein saw American artwork before this as being ‘subtle’
in a way that was, 'really not part of America'.
An America that was rapidly changing.
Keith Hartley: It was a very exciting period - the beginning of the 1960s.
Things were happening.
A whole range of liberation movements.
Feminism.
The Civil Rights movement in America.
Gay liberation
and artists wanted to reflect some of these things that were going on.
Narrator: Yet whilst pop art reflected these changes
critical reception to this new style was
mixed.
Keith Hartley: It was quite a shock
that he didn't seem to be putting much input himself -
his own feelings, into the work.
Narrator: Some feared that pop art was a threat to the very concept of high art.
In 1962 the art critic Max Kozloff wrote that:
Yet whilst controversy can help to make a piece famous in the first place
it doesn't account for why some pieces stay so beloved
So how does that happen?
Part of Lichtenstein’s enduring appeal is in the distinctiveness of his style.
The work of artists using distinctively recognisable or graphic styles,
tend to reappear in the world around us.
Luke Edwards: The work has been kind of cycled.
Fiona Menzies: It's been used in advertising.
People can instantly recognise it.
Keith Hartley: Forms and colours that you see in pop art are used everywhere,
and I think people have grown used to it.
They warm to it all the time.
Luke Edwards: The technique is very high, but it's actually quite simplified drawing.
Narrator: And as a result, you see it on advertisements
stationery
Snapchat filters
tv shows
and particularly in the fashion world, from catwalk to high street.
Such re-appropriations also open up older artwork to younger generations.
Prolonging its life in the culture.
"I'll see you very soon. Bye!"
Narrator: All of which help keep styles like Roy Lichtenstein’s ever-present beyond the art world.
As a result, helping to elevate his value within it.
While 'In the Car' has moved from comic book to canvas, it has also made another progression
- from a hugely controversial piece of artwork to one widely loved by art critics and the public alike.
Keith Hartley: The general feeling has altered quite considerably.
Holly Prentice: It gets a great response here.
Narrator: Because viewing art is very much shaped by the time in which it is viewed
and the power of controversy is often lost as the years go by.
Luke Edwards: For me, pop art has never really seemed controversial.
But maybe that's because I'm from like a later generation of artists.
Keith Hartley: Once people have got used to something, along comes something else
which they're going to be shocked about.
Narrator: 'In The Car' became famous because of its controversy.
But it’s stayed so well loved because of its distinctive, accessible and easily imitated style.
And because of something more intangible:
a variety of factors that can elevate an artwork to being truly great.
Keith Hartley: When you actually see it for the first time,
you are just taken aback by the impact of the colour
the impact of the design.
And people are quite overcome by it.
Holly Prentice: A big hitter that I can pull out, and everyone's going to go, 'wow!'
Fiona Menzies: You're never going to walk past it, and not look at it.
Keith Hartley: Really great works have a sort of - a big impact
on you, and I think this work in particular has that.
Narrator: Get involved in the comments below to let us know what you think makes an artwork iconic,
and keep an eye out on our channel for future videos in this series.