DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is pleased to announce the arrival of Roy Lichtensteins Five Brushstrokes, a monumental addition to the Sculpture Park on Thursday, July 22.. The 2010 fabrication of Lichtensteins iconic Five Brushstrokes showcases his bold, colorful graphics and humorous portrayal of the brushstroke, an integral yet uncommon subject in art. Rising 20 feet high, Five Brushstrokes pays homage to Lichtensteins position as a central figure of the 1960s Pop Art movement. Lichtensteins dynamic, stylized brushstrokes will enliven deCordovas campus for the next two years.
DeCordovas Senior Curator Nick Capasso says, “The addition of Roy Lichtensteins Five Brushstrokes to our outdoor exhibition program is a significant step forward for deCordovas Sculpture Park. Lichtenstein was among the very most important American artists of the post-war era, and this iconic sculpture sets a powerful art historical context for the more contemporary sculptures on display. And, its colorful, beautiful, and looks fabulous on our grounds!”
Roy Lichtenstein emerged as an innovative artist during the 1960s Pop Art movement—a movement characterized by bright, bold graphics and themes from popular culture. Lichtenstein first grabbed the attention of the art world with his Benday dots, flat colors and hard black outlines derived from comics. The sculptures he produced throughout his career are little known compared to his two dimensional graphic works. Lichtenstein began making multi-colored, planar sculptures based on his graphic work in the 1970s. Five Brushstrokes is a 20-foot-high stack of three large strokes of paint and two small globs. He made this sculpture late in his career, long after he had abandoned comic strip subject matter in favor of re-making Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian, and even his own “masterworks.”
The Pop Art movement was, in part, a rebellion against the improvised, emotional style of 1940s and 1950s Abstract Expressionism. Five Brushstrokes satirizes Abstract Expressionist strokes of paint by separating, amplifying and exaggerating them with hard edges and bold color pairings.
Unlike Abstract Expressionist work, which focused on the artists individual psychology, Lichtensteins sculpture leaves no trace of the labor used to produce it. The work even hides its medium, aluminum, under many layers of enamel paint and varnishes. Five Brushstrokes is more than a reaction to Abstract Expressionism; just as Lichtenstein parodied the work of the “great masters”, Five Brushstrokes parodies Lichtensteins own Brushstroke screen prints from the mid-1960s. The shiny aluminum strokes are barely three-dimensional, but they do have a twenty-inch depth and recessed grooves within the sculpture. The sculpture is, as Lichtenstein says, “a two-dimensional symbol on a three-dimensional object”—a sculpture that refuses to be a sculpture.
Image: Five Brushstrokes (C) Roy Lichtenstein Foundation
About deCordova
DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum was established in 1950 to educate the public about American contemporary art. DeCordova’s unique campus features both indoor and outdoor venues, allowing its visitors to celebrate and explore contemporary art across 35 acres. Inside, the Museum features a robust slate of rotating exhibitions and innovative interpretive programming. Outside, deCordova’s Sculpture Park hosts more than 60 works, the majority of which are on loan to the Museum. DeCordova also offers the largest non-degree granting studio art program in New England. DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum attracts more than 100,000 visitors from New England and tourists from around the world to its campus each year and enrolls more than 3,000 students of all ages in its studio art program.
General Information
DeCordova is open Tuesday through Sunday, from 10 am to 5 pm and on selected Monday holidays. General admission during Museum hours is $12 for adults; $8 for senior citizens, students, and youth ages 6-12. Children age 5 and under, Lincoln residents, and Active Duty Military Personnel and their dependents are admitted free. The Sculpture Park is open year-round during daylight hours. Guided public tours of the Museum’s main galleries take place every Thursday at 1 pm and Sunday at 2 pm. Tours of the Sculpture Park are given on Saturday and Sunday at 1 pm from April to October. All guided tours are free with Campus admission.
www.decordova.org
