Lichtenstein Comic Inspired Art Estimated at $35-45 Million 2 2

[Nexus]

http://artinfo.com/news/story/750696/connecting-the-dots-between-the-record-43-million-lichtenstein-and-the-431-comic-strip-it-was-copied-from

 

by Judd Tully

Published: November 17, 2011

 

It is widely known that the late, great Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein sourced much of his imagery from comic books and newspaper comic sections of yore, tweaking the scale to create the boldly painted compositions that made him world famous. But rarely do the collectors who pay millions for his paintings spare a thought for the Ben-Day artists who inspired his work.

 

This was likely the case last week at Christie’s when Lichtenstein’s classic bubble-captioned painting “I Can See The Whole Room!... And There’s Nobody In It!” sold for an artist-record $43,202,500 to New York private dealer Guy Bennett. The cover lot last sold at auction at the same house, also as the cover lot, in November 1988 for a then-dazzling $2,090,000 (est. $800,000-1.2 million), part of the fabled Tremaine Collection. The Connecticut-based Burton and Emily Tremaine, for their part, had acquired the work from the Leo Castelli Gallery in November 1961 — the year it was painted — for a discounted price of $450, according to gallery records provided by Barbara Castelli, the late dealer’s widow who continues to run the gallery.

 

Christie’s academically styled catalogue entry included a reproduction of the source image for the painting, culled from an August 6, 1961, panel of Saunders & Overgard’s syndicated comic “Steve Roper.” Apart from the word “Trooper!”, which began the bubble caption in the original, the text and image are virtually identical. Of course, the newspaper strip was black and white, and Lichtenstein added a yellow background to further dramatize the blown-up, sharply chiseled male visage staring through the peephole.

 

But there’s more to the story than a polite footnote about the Steve Roper source material.

 

In 1963 the painting was exhibited in the Guggenheim’s landmark exhibition “Six Painters and the Object.” Lichtenstein, then 39, had just been featured in a splashy Time magazine piece about the new Pop art craze, which included a comment about his use of real comic strips as models: “there is enough change so that he can claim to impose his own order on them.” A published letter to the editor by William Overgard, the then-36-year-old cartoonist and creator of the original drawing, followed.

 

“Sir: As a cartoonist, I was interested in Roy Lichtenstein’s comments on comic strips in your article on pop art,” went the letter. “Though he may not, as he says, copy them exactly, Lichtenstein in his painting currently being shown at the Guggenheim comes pretty close to the last panel of my Steve Roper Sunday page of August 6, 1961. Very flattering… I think?”

 

Overgard, the son of a silent movie star and a published author and screenwriter in the science fiction and horror film realm, died in 1990 at his 17-acre farm in Stony Point, New York. You might say Overgard had his Warholian 15 minutes of fame, but there’s also more to his legacy than that.

 

The cartoon artist was tracked and rediscovered in part by David Barsalou, the creator of the Web site Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein, a three-decade endeavor to track down the original cartoons that the Pop art icon supped on.

 

“A lot of these major collectors, they want a Lichteinstein, which is fine,” Barsalou said in a phone interview, “but the whole premise of Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein over the years is just to bring recognition to the original comic art that Lichtenstein copied.”

 

“If these collectors understood the intrinsic value of original comic art they’d be grabbing all of that stuff because its at bargain prices right now,” continued Barsalou, who studied Pop art as a student in the late ‘70s at the Hartford Art School. “Sooner or later the art world is going to catch up to it.”

 

Barsalou has his own auction story to tell, in fact, tying the frayed thread between Overgard and Lichtenstein. Last August, the cartoon aficionado found the original Overgard panel on eBay and outdueled four other remote bidders to snag the prize for $431. Overgard had donated his 3,000-plus cartoon archive to the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University, but that panel is not part of that protected trove.

 

“To me,” said Barsalou, “it was the steal of the century.”

[Terry Doyle]

. . . and this is certainly a tale about 'stealing'.

 

Maybe the title of this thread should be changed to, "The Great Art Theft"?

[delekkerste]

Barsalou has his own auction story to tell, in fact, tying the frayed thread between Overgard and Lichtenstein. Last August, the cartoon aficionado found the original Overgard panel on eBay and outdueled four other remote bidders to snag the prize for $431.

 

Wow - I would have loved to have gotten that original.

[comix4fun]

Barsalou has his own auction story to tell, in fact, tying the frayed thread between Overgard and Lichtenstein. Last August, the cartoon aficionado found the original Overgard panel on eBay and outdueled four other remote bidders to snag the prize for $431.

 

Wow - I would have loved to have gotten that original.

 

 

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

 

I could whip it out at high society art gallery showings and tell people it's my Lichtenstein "preliminary drawing" and ask only $5 million for it.

[Bronty]

You're in luck then, I'm sure the current owner would sell for much less

[Nexus]

Check out the eBay auction listing before it goes away:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130563038441&_rdc=1

 

This really would have been a cool piece to own. Although...is there a more fitting buyer than the guy who got it?

[markseifert]

Check out the eBay auction listing before it goes away:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130563038441&_rdc=1

 

This really would have been a cool piece to own. Although...is there a more fitting buyer than the guy who got it?

 

Right on both counts. A rather cool little story.

[Terry Doyle]

Barsalou has his own auction story to tell, in fact, tying the frayed thread between Overgard and Lichtenstein. Last August, the cartoon aficionado found the original Overgard panel on eBay and outdueled four other remote bidders to snag the prize for $431.

 

Wow - I would have loved to have gotten that original.

 

 

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

 

I could whip it out at high society art gallery showings and tell people it's my Lichtenstein "preliminary drawing" and ask only $5 million for it.

 

Then the art luvvies might question why Lichty's finished painting looks inferior to the 'prelim'

[comix4fun]

Barsalou has his own auction story to tell, in fact, tying the frayed thread between Overgard and Lichtenstein. Last August, the cartoon aficionado found the original Overgard panel on eBay and outdueled four other remote bidders to snag the prize for $431.

 

Wow - I would have loved to have gotten that original.

 

 

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

 

I could whip it out at high society art gallery showings and tell people it's my Lichtenstein "preliminary drawing" and ask only $5 million for it.

 

Then the art luvvies might question why Lichty's finished painting looks inferior to the 'prelim'

 

 

Making my piece all the more the bargain!!!

[AKA Rick]

I think if Heritage or the right auction house got a hold of this piece and marketed it right, it could command prices in the five figures fairly easily. I'm sure the owner of the Lichtenstein would pay at least $100,000+ for the original just to keep them paired together, destroy the comic art an attempt at publicity, or control the value of the Lichtenstein piece by removing the true original from the marketplace. I'm sure right now most of us on CAF would pay $2,000-3,000 on the spot based on speculation investment looking at this under $500 opportunity with great 20/20 hindsight of a real opportunity that passed us all by... and the key words were all there for a search, so it wasn't really hidden treasure more than something that we were all oblivious to knowing about.

 

Thanks for posting this, now I'm searching eBay all weekend for needles in a haystack for burried treasure

 

Check out the eBay auction listing before it goes away:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130563038441&_rdc=1

 

This really would have been a cool piece to own. Although...is there a more fitting buyer than the guy who got it?

[alxjhnsn]

I don't know "art," but I know that:

 

1) I think Lichtenstein should have credited his sources.

2) I think David Barsalou has a great site

3) I think his auction win of the Overgard Steve Roper is news worthy

 

So, I have captured the eBay winning page as follows:

 

1) The winning bid page from eBay

2) The enlarged image from eBay

3) A JPG of the art

 

The links lead to the comicart-l file page on Yahoo.

Edited November 19, 2011 by alxjhnsn

[markseifert]

and the key words were all there for a search, so it wasn't really hidden treasure more than something that we were all oblivious to knowing about.

 

Thanks for posting this, now I'm searching eBay all weekend for needles in a haystack for burried treasure

 

Is the hunt on for Lichtenstein-source originals? It does make you wonder if any of the other original comic art is out there...

[AKA Rick]

I do think that is the sound of opportunity knocking...

 

and the key words were all there for a search, so it wasn't really hidden treasure more than something that we were all oblivious to knowing about.

 

Thanks for posting this, now I'm searching eBay all weekend for needles in a haystack for burried treasure

 

Is the hunt on for Lichtenstein-source originals? It does make you wonder if any of the other original comic art is out there...

[WYLDCHYLD]

I one day aspire to work at a fine art museum, where I will make it my pet project to "slip-in" a piece of my own choosing to be seen among the pieces on display from all the great masters. Then after a year, when it is taken down from public display at the museum I will consign it to Christie's where we will hear those magic words:

 

"SOLD! $43 million dollars for the Hembeck original "Human Torch Goes Swimming."

[drdroom]

I do think that is the sound of opportunity knocking...

 

and the key words were all there for a search, so it wasn't really hidden treasure more than something that we were all oblivious to knowing about.

 

Thanks for posting this, now I'm searching eBay all weekend for needles in a haystack for burried treasure

 

Is the hunt on for Lichtenstein-source originals? It does make you wonder if any of the other original comic art is out there...

 

 

There was a Wally Wood aviation war page a while back, possibly on Comiclink(?). The description said it was the basis for a RL piece & gave the title. I hunted the internets in vain looking for the painting but came up empty. The page sold for a normal price, not to me.

[drdroom]

Banksy has done quite a bit of this, quite amusingly.

[delekkerste]

Just went to the new Clyfford Still Museum in Denver yesterday. It's totally worth a visit, not just to see all the art and artifacts, but also to use all the educational resources there which chronicle the evolution of Abstract Expressionism and other art movements of the 20th century in a larger historical context.

 

Also, if you thought the recent Uncanny X-Men #137 page auction was thrilling to watch, your head may explode at watching Still's "1949-A-No. 1" being sold at the Sotheby's auction earlier this month (not that Still's art needs mindblowing sale prices to justify its considerable historical importance):

 

http://www.sothebys.com/en/inside/videos.html

 

Scroll down the menu to "Clyfford Still's '1949-A-No1'" and enjoy.

[spider9698]

Gabby seemed unfazed to the whole ordeal. The highlight was when the auctioneer mistakenly said "sold for $28,000!"

 

[comix4fun]

Just went to the new Clyfford Still Museum in Denver yesterday. It's totally worth a visit, not just to see all the art and artifacts, but also to use all the educational resources there which chronicle the evolution of Abstract Expressionism and other art movements of the 20th century in a larger historical context.

 

Also, if you thought the recent Uncanny X-Men #137 page auction was thrilling to watch, your head may explode at watching Still's "1949-A-No1" being sold at the Sotheby's auction earlier this month (not that Still's art needs mindblowing sale prices to justify its considerable historical importance):

 

http://www.sothebys.com/en/inside/videos.html

 

Scroll down the menu to "Clyfford Still's '1949-A-No1'" and enjoy.

 

 

 

Am I the only one that thought the auctioneer's accent bore a striking resemblance to Kevin Bacon's at the beginning of X-men First Class?

 

[Aman619]

Actually, not many people know this, but Still swiped that image from a printing ink smear defect published in Girls Love Stories #44. So it's yet another example of a dirtbag plagiarist getting filthy rich!

 

; )