Roy Lichtenstein 1923-1997

Unlike the intimate solitude of many art historical nudes, Roy Lichtenstein’s Roommates (1994) introduces duality and interaction within a single frame. Created as part of his final Nudes series, the work reimagines the genre through the lens of commercial aesthetics, comic-strip syntax, and stylised narrative distance.

The composition features two female figures sharing a space, but rendered without emotional context or specific identity. Their presence feels constructed—drawn from Lichtenstein’s archive of graphic sources and visual tropes. The figures are stripped of psychological detail and merged into a compositional system of flat fields, rhythmic contours, and abrupt spatial shifts. What might have once been read as intimacy or narrative is reduced to surface logic and formal interplay.

The work draws subtle connections to Lichtenstein’s Interiors series, where architecture and decoration serve as proxies for personality. Here, the furniture, floor pattern, and room divide the canvas as actively as the figures do. The geometry of the setting interacts with the curves of the bodies, creating a compositional tension between structure and sensuality.

Printed as a large-scale relief on Rives BFK mould-made paper, Roommates is signed, dated ’94, and numbered in pencil lower right. The print is offered in excellent condition by Coskun Fine Art, with full authentication and provenance available upon request.