Water Lilies - Blue Lily Pads, 1992: By Roy Lichtenstein

  • Framed image showing stylised blue lily pads on a reflective pond.

    Water Lilies – Blue Lily Pads, 1992.

    Screenprinted enamel on processed and swirled stainless steel, with painted and routered relief wood frame.

    Framed: 110.5 x 97.8 cm.

    Edition of 23; plus 1 BAT, 6 AP, 3 PP, 3 Presentation Proofs, 1 NGA archive proof, 2 STA.

    © The Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

    BACK TO: WATER LILIES SERIES
     
    Water Lilies – Blue Lily Pads is one of two prints in Roy Lichtenstein's later Water Lilies series to feature a painted and routered relief wooden frame. The oval-shaped image at the centre takes a singular, crown-shaped white water lily, half-filled in yellow, as its pictorial focus. Surrounding the flower are the titular lily pads in blue, except for a partly-cropped green pad, and these stand out against the various patterns that cover the surface of the water.
     
    Most notably, clusters of red, white, and blue Ben-Day dots appear to look purple from afar, relying on the technique of optical mixing (whereby the viewer's eye merges adjacent contrasting colours). Is this Lichtenstein's Pop Art tribute to George Seurat's pointillist landscapes? The idyllic scene has a white frame with three sections that are overlaid with black horizontal lines. 

  • "I'm interested in what would normally be considered the worst aspects of commercial art."

     

    - Roy Lichtenstein

    By working on processed and swirled stainless steel to create a limited edition of 23, in collaboration with Saff Tech Arts in Maryland, the industrial surface of Blue Lily Pads transforms the print into a dynamic experience. The reflective qualities of the metal interact with ambient light, subtly changing the appearance of the lily pads and water as the viewer moves, adding an element of movement and variability.