Q+A: Dorothy Lichtenstein

Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006 | 8:04 a.m.

What: "Roy Lichtenstein Prints 1956-97"

Where: Las Vegas Art Museum, 9600 W. Sahara Ave.

When: Sunday through Nov. 19

Admission: $6 general, $5 seniors, $3 students, free for children under 12

Information: 360-8000; www.lasvegasartmuseum.org

Roy Lichtenstein's Benday dots and primary colors turned him into a household name and helped launch the pop art movement.

Dorothy Lichtenstein was married to the pop artist from 1968 until he died from pneumonia in 1997. An art history graduate, she met him when she was working on "The American Supermarket," an exhibit that included work by Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselman and other artists.

Now in her 60s, she heads the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and is co-executor of Lichtenstein's estate. She gives her blessing to the exhibition of his prints opening Sunday at the Las Vegas Art Museum.

Dorothy Lichtenstein was waiting for the remnants of Hurricane Ernesto to arrive at her home in South Hampton, N.Y., when she talked with the Sun by phone last week.

Q Is it true that your husband didn't originally see himself as a pop artist?

When he did the first work, he actually said that he had to get beyond the level of his own taste because this type of imagery seemed so nonartistic A lot of people thought that he must have loved comics growing up. I don't think he did.

The popular story is that he first drew a cartoon for his son, who questioned his drawing abilities. True?

(Laughs) Even Roy couldn't say whether that story was true.

Either way, he fully embraced the style. Why?

He realized that he was onto something so exciting for himself that he couldn't let go of it. Even though it looked so appallingly "unartlike," it had kind of a power and he couldn't go back to doing what he was doing. This work challenged his own ideas.

Do you think general audiences understand the depth of his work?

I don't think so. On a basic level, people think, "Roy Lichtenstein: cartoons." Yet he did so much after that. He also had a long career as an artist before he became a pop artist.

Originally did he identify more with the abstract movement?

He always looked at his work like he was doing an abstract painting. He worked on a revolving easel and looked at the work as a set of abstract marks. The subject matter was important but he didn't want the subject matter to demand that he draw it exactly.

There's a lot of humor in his work. Where does that come from?

He had that sense of irony and of taking the ego out. He did a lot of paintings based on American historical paintings, and he liked to alter them a little. With the Native American works, he's taken these grandiose themes and altered them in a way that takes the grandiosity out.

What was he saying by this?

He was a humanist and a scientific rationalist. Maybe in a way, he was trying to set history right.

Are you speaking specifically to the American Indian series?

Yes, but even the cartoons that glorify war heroes. Those are the kind of archetypes he was not really taking seriously.

It seemed that he was always a little surprised by his success.

He thought he was so lucky, once he realized that he didn't have to have a day job. He'd joke that he'd wake up one day and someone would say, "It's time to take your pills," and he'd still be (teaching) in Oswego.