American Indian Theme Series: 1980 by Roy Lichtenstein

With the exception of Modern Head #1 (1970), Roy Lichtenstein returned to woodcut in 1979 with the American Indian print series, marking his first sustained engagement with the medium since the 1950s. Revisiting a subject he had explored earlier in his career, Lichtenstein combined Native American imagery with surrealist elements, aligning the series closely with the American Indian and Surrealist paintings he produced during the same period. The six prints, begun at Tyler Graphics Ltd. in spring 1979, were printed from hand-carved blocks incorporating lithography for the white ground.

At the same time, Lichtenstein expanded the subject into a group of intaglio prints at Tyler Graphics Ltd., signalling a renewed interest in traditional techniques such as etching, aquatint, soft-ground and engraving, which he had not used extensively since the 1950s. These copperplate works, though not formally titled as a series, share the same thematic focus and were published in the early 1980s, alongside two related soft-ground etchings issued in 1981. Together, these editions demonstrate Lichtenstein’s return to manual print processes while maintaining the clarity and structure characteristic of his late 1970s practice.