Funny Papers

Have a laugh on Cartoonists Day!

Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein drew from the cartoon aesthetic by using the impersonal and mechanical look of the silkscreen in this quintessential Pop image, Sweet Dreams, Baby! from the "11 Pop Artists" portfolio. The print exemplifies Lichtenstein's use of comic-book imagery incorporating the balloons and words in which clichés of human emotion are revealed.

Lichtenstein's technique and style reveal no trace of the artist's hand. He depicted objects in a depersonalized manner by means of the style of mass-produced commercial printing. Striving to simplify representational art so that it would have an element of visual impact similar to that of contemporary abstract painting, he emphasized the formal qualities of the images, such as black outlines and broad areas of flat primary color.

Lichtenstein raised the level of comic-book imagery from that of low art to the realm of high art by transforming the integral meaning of the images from a story line to that of an enigmatic single image placed within the context of fine art.

Source: National Museum of American Art (CD-ROM) (New York and Washington D.C.: MacMillan Digital in cooperation with the National Museum of American Art, 1996).

Pictured: Roy Lichtenstein, 1923–97, Sweet Dreams, Baby! from the portfolio, "11 Pop Artists," Volume III, 1965, color serigraph on paper, 35 3/4 x 25 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Philip Morris Incorporated.