LICHTENSTEIN AND NATIVE AMERICAN POP ART IN CONVERSATION AT MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

Santa Fe, NM--A seldom-viewed selection of Roy Lichtenstein's work that drew inspiration from Native American symbols, motifs and themes will be presented at the Museum of Fine Arts. An exhibition of contemporary Native American art informed by popular culture will run concurrently. Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian Encounters and Native Pop will both be on view February 3 through April 23, 2006 in the New Wing Galleries.

Roy Lichtenstein's comic strip-inspired paintings have become synonymous with the Pop art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition will include works from two time periods when the artist directed his attention to indigenous culture: the 1950s and the 1970s. The works from the 1950s include paintings, sculptures and works on paper created when the artist was studying for his master's degree at Ohio State University and teaching art. These early works, which are virtually unknown, reflect the influence of European modernism on Lichtenstein's aesthetic, specifically that of Picasso, MirÛ and Klee.

"Lichtenstein's encounters with the theme of the American Indian as a vital mythic component of our country's heritage was treated with his characteristically irreverent wit, gentle humor, and affectionate irony," write the exhibition's curators, Gail Stavitsky and Twig Johnson of the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey, in the accompanying catalogue. The 1950s works coincided with Lichtenstein's period of reproducing cliched and often "discredited" images found in American history books, including nostalgic scenes from the American West and romanticized images of Native Americans. The traveling exhibition includes Native American objects that demonstrate the potential source materials used by Lichtenstein for his paintings.

In the late 1970s, Lichtenstein again turned to Native American culture, this time appropriating design motifs and replicating them in his more familiar Pop-style paintings. Borrowing from a broad variety of source materials, such as textiles, beadwork, quillwork, ceramics and baskets from both North and South American Indian cultures that he saw in books, private collections and exhibitions, Lichtenstein created his Amerind series from 1979 to 1981 while living in Southampton, Long Island. In a large-scale painting such as Indian Composition (1979; 84 x 120 inches), one can identify influences as diverse as Southwest pottery designs, Northwest Coast totem and eye motifs, and patterns from Peruvian textiles and ceramics. As in the 1950s works, Lichtenstein was interested in "the cliche of the Indian" and contrasting "the European's view of the Indian against the Indian's view of himself."

Just as Roy Lichtenstein appropriated from multiple sources for his Pop art--including from comic strips, masterpieces of art history, and Native American design motifs--contemporary Native American artists employ appropriation as a strategy to explore Native identity. Native Pop, an exhibition that runs concurrently with Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian Encounters, includes Native artists who look to objects from popular culture or quote imagery from Western art history, from Curtis or Matisse to Lichtenstein or Warhol.

The artists in Native Pop infuse their appropriated subjects with humor, irony and social criticism. Among the artists included in this exhibition are Diego Romero, James Luna, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Marcus Amerman, Teri Greeves and America Meredith, among others. By exhibiting Native artists who work within a Pop aesthetic and philosophy, this show, together with Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian Encounters, creates a dialogue about cultural appropriation.

Roy Lichtenstein: American Indian Encounters is organized by the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, New Jersey, and curated by Gail Stavitsky and Twig Johnson, in conjunction with the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. The exhibition and catalogue are supported by generous grants from the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, the Karma Foundation, and from the following Exhibition Angels: Anonymous, Dorothea and Peter Frank, Gregg Seibert, and Judith and William Turner. Additional support has been provided by Adrian Shelby and Jacqueline and Herb Klein. Other venues include the Tacoma Art Museum, the Parrish Art Museum and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art.

Native Pop is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts and curated by Laura Addison.

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The Museum of Fine Arts was founded in 1917 as the Art Gallery of the Museum of New Mexico. Housed in a spectacular Pueblo Revival building designed by I. H. and William M. Rapp, it was based on their New Mexico building at the Panama-California Exposition (1915). The museum's architecture inaugurated what has come to be known as "Santa Fe Style." For more than 85 years the Museum has collected and exhibited work by leading artists from New Mexico and elsewhere. This tradition continues today with a wide-array of exhibitions with work from the world's leading artists.

The Museum of Fine Arts is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs.

Information for the Public: The Museum of Fine Arts is located at 107 W. Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 10:00 A.M.-5:00 P.M. Open Free on Fridays, 5:00 P.M.-8:00 P.M.