“Brushstrokes are almost a symbol of art. The Brushstrokes paintings also resemble Abstract Expressionism. Of course visible brushstrokes in a painting convey a sense of grand gesture; but in my hands, the brushstrokes become a depiction of a grand gesture.”
—Roy Lichtenstein
In Brushstroke (1965), Lichtenstein continued his extended enquiry into the very nature of the brushstroke and its perceived importance in an art historical context. While expressive brushstrokes were revered by the Abstract Expressionists and art critics alike in post-war America, Lichtenstein’s satirical response was to parody this gestural mark through his antithetical Pop Art approach. Starting in the 1960s and exemplified in the present lot, Lichtenstein stripped the brushstroke back to its purest form, and rendered it in a highly mechanised style. In doing so, he intentionally distanced the brushstroke from its association with the artist’s hand, and thus with the concept of individual genius, which was so often bestowed on Abstract Expressionist painters like Jackson Pollock. Through adopting a highly graphic and seemingly mass-produced aesthetic, Lichtenstein’s Brushstroke demonstrates the artistic possibilities afforded to him by the Pop Art style, while his elevation of the transformed brushstroke satirically critiques the emphasis placed on the gestural mark within the art historical canon.