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Whaam!

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Not to be confused with Wham.
Whaam!
ArtistRoy Lichtenstein
Year1963
TypePop art
LocationTate Modern, London

Whaam! is a 1963 diptych painting by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. It is the perhalps the best known example of his hard-edged, precise compositions, documenting but also parodying the comic book style and elements of commercialism in his signature tongue-in-cheek humorous manner. It is one of the most iconic pieces of pop art, and a key work in Lichtenstein's attempt to present "not 'American' painting but actually industrial painting". The painting follows the comic strip-based themes of his earlier work, and is part of series on war which he worked on between 1962 and 1964. It is one of his two notable large war-themed paintings. It was purchased by the Tate Modern in 1966, after being exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1963, and has remained in their collection since.

The work depicts the fiery explosion when one fighter plane successfully shoots at another with a missile. The painting's title is displayed in the onomatopoetic oversized caption in the second panel.

Although derived from comics, Lichtenstein made numerous alterations to the work, such as creating two panels from one original, which are the subject of significant critical commentary. He also altered the relative significance of the various subjects of the work, both graphical and narrative. It is widely regarded as one of his finest and most notable works.

Background

Original comic book panel from All-American Men of War #89, 1962 (DC Comics)

Lichtenstein left Ohio State University to serve in the United States Army between February 1943 and January 1946—during and after World War II (WWII). After entering training programs for languages, engineering, and pilot training, all of which were cancelled, he served as an orderly, draftsman, and artist.[1] Although he served, Lichtenstein never saw combat in WWII.[2]

During the late 1950s and early 1960s a number of American painters began to adapt the imagery and motifs of comic strips. Lichtenstein in 1958 made drawings of comic strip characters. Andy Warhol produced his earliest paintings in the style in 1960. Lichtenstein, unaware of Warhol's work, produced Look Mickey and Popeye in 1961.[3] He departed from his Abstract Expressionism period to cartoon work in 1961 and then moved on to more serious comic book themes such as romance and wartime armed forces depictions a few years later.[4] Lichtenstein said that at the time, "I was very excited about, and very interested in, the highly emotional content yet detached impersonal handling of love, hate, war, etc., in these cartoon images."[4] Lichtenstein's romance and war comic-based works monumentalized comic book heroic subjects.[5] He is now known for borrowing both comic book techniques and subjects.[6]

Whaam! adapts a comic-book panel from a 1962 issue of DC Comics' All-American Men of War.[7] The story was "Star Jockey", from All-American Men of War #89 (Jan.-Feb. 1962), drawn by Irv Novick.[8][9] The painting is large in scale, measuring 4.0 x 1.7 m (13 ft 4 in x 5 ft 7 in).[7] One of Lichtenstein's war series of images (another major one is As I Opened Fire), it combine "brilliant color and narrative situation".[10] In the early and mid 1960s, he produced explosions sculptures that depicted freestanding and relief forms of subjects such as his previous comic-based paintings of "catastrophic release of energy" such as Whaam!.[11]

When Lichtenstein had his first solo show at The Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City in February 1962, it sold out before opening. The exhibition included Engagement Ring, Blam and The Refrigerator.[12] The show ran from February 10 through March 3, 1962.[13] According to the Lichtenstein Foundation website, Whaam! was part of Lichtenstein's second solo exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery from September 28—October 24, 1963 that included Drowning Girl, Baseball Manager, In the Car, Conversation, and Torpedo...Los!, and the Tate Gallery purchased it in 1966.[1][13]

Whaam! is widely described as Lichtenstein's most famous work.[14][15][16] Other sources cite it along with Drowning Girl as one of his two most famous works.[17][18] It is also regarded as one of his most influential works along with Drowning Girl and Look Mickey.[19] Suprisingly, Lichtenstein had not been a comic book collector as a youth.[20] Although Lichtenstein is known for painting the comic-based Whaam! and several similarly themed works, his second wife, Dorothy, claims that Lichtenstein "was not a fan of comics and cartoons," but rather was enticed by the challenge of creating art based on a subject that was remote from the typical "artistic image".[21]

In 1963, Lichtenstein was parodying various types of sources such as commercial illustrations, comic imagery and even modern masterpieces. The masterpieces represented what could have been dubbed the "canon" of art and was thought of as "high art," while the "low-art" subject matter included comic strip images. His masterworks sources included the likes of Cézanne, Mondrian and Picasso. During this time in his career, Lichtenstein noted that "the things that I have apparently parodied I actually admire."[22] Although the Lichtenstein Foundation website claims that Lichtenstein did not begin using his opaque projector technique until the fall of 1963,[23] Lichtenstein described his process for producing comics based art as follows:

As directly as possible...From a cartoon, photograph or whatever, I draw a small picture—the size that will fit into my opaque projector...I don't draw a picture to reproduce it—I do it in order to recompose it...I project the drawing onto the canvas and pencil it in and then I play around with the drawing until it satisfies me.

— Lichtenstein, [4]

Description

A pivotal work of the pop art movement, Whaam! painting depicts a fighter aircraft firing a rocket into an enemy plane, with a red-and-yellow explosion. The cartoon style is heightened by the use of the onomatopoeic lettering "WHAAM!" and the yellow-boxed caption with black lettering.[citation needed] Lichtenstein employed his usual comic book style: "Using bright primary colors with black and white, he outlined simplified forms, incorporating mechanical printer's (benday) and stereotyped imagery."[6]

Lichtenstein altered the source so that the exploding plane was more prominent than in the original relative to the dominant conquering plane, making the image more compelling.[9] The prominent exclamation "WHAAM!" is the graphic equivalent of a sound effect.[24] Although the exploding flames are dominant,[25] the pilot and the airplane are the narrative focus.[24] The other element of the narrative content was a text balloon that contained the following text: "I pressed the fire control ... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky...".[26]

Although the original source was one panel, Lichtenstein created two panels to reinforce the separation of action and result.[25] The left panel features a prominent plane with a text balloon that is somewhat cast aside. In the panel the angular depiction gives the plane depth.[25] Meanwhile, the right panel shows a plane head-on competing along with the exclamation for prominence among the flames of the explosion.[25] The two are clearly linked.[27] The diptych is depicted with one panel containing the missile launch and the other its explosion, representing temporally distinct events.[28] Lichtenstein once commented on this piece in a July 10, 1967 letter: "I remember being concerned with the idea of doing two almost separate paintings having little hint of compositional connection, and each having slightly separate stylistic character. Of course there is the humorous connection of one panel shooting the other."[29]

Reception

Whaam! departs from Lichtenstein's earlier works such as Step-on-Can with Leg and Like New, in that the panels are not variations of a specific image.[30] There is critical analysis of this two discordant panels.

Whaam! presented "...limited, flat colors and hard, precise drawing," which produced "...a hard-edge subject painting that documents while it gently parodies the familiar hero images of modern America."[31] The grand scale and dramatic depiction make Whaam! a naturally historic pop art work. The planned brushstrokes are pop art's retort to Expressionism.[32] Along with As I Opened Fire (the other of his monumental war paintings), this is regarded as the culmination of the dramatic war-comic works of Lichtenstein.[33] Compared with As I Opened Fire, Whaam! is less abstract.[34] Whaam! represented a Lichtenstein's 1963 expansion "into the 'epic' vein".[35] This is an example of Lichtenstein's painstaking detailing of certain physical features of the aircraft's cockpit.[36] A November 1963 Art Magazine review stated that this was one of the "broad and powerful paintings" of the 1963 exhibition at Castelli's Gallery.[13] One view is that by magnifying the comic book panels to an enormous size, "Lichtenstein slapped the viewer in the face with their triviality.".[6]

When art dealer Ileana Sonnabend sold Whaam! to the Tate for £4,665 (£109,763 in 2024 currency) in 1966—in spite of a reported market price of £5,382 (£126,633 in 2024 currency)—the acquisition was condemned by some of the museums’s trustees, among them the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, the painter Andrew Forge, and the critic Herbert Read. The Tate’s director, Norman Reid, said that the work aroused more public interest than any acquisition since the Second World War. In 1969, Lichtenstein donated what he called a “pencil scribble”, his initial sketch for Whaam!. The first Lichtenstein retrospective held at the museum attracted 52,000 visitors.[37]

At the time of the 2013 Lichtenstein Retrospective at the Tate Modern, The Daily Telegraph's critic Alastair Smart, derided the entire exhibit. When discussing Whaam, he belittled Lichtenstein's inspiration of comic books rather than more noble biblical or mytholigical sources. Then, he stated his belief that the work was really an attempt to mimic Abstract Expressionism. Smart describes the subject matter as "a fighter pilot blasts an enemy into flaming oblivion" and speaks against the work's merits as a positive representation of the fighting American spirit, suggesting that those who espouse this thematic belief are really trying to hard to support the work. Smart does concede that the work marks "Lichtenstein’s incendiary impact on the US art scene".[38]

Despite his general distaste for the exhibition, Adrian Searle of The Guardian credited the oversized portion of Whaam!'s narrative content that gives the work its title with accurately describing its graphic content saying "Whaam! goes the painting, as the rocket hits, and the enemy fighter explodes in a livid, comic-book roar."[39]

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Chronology". Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. Retrieved 2013-06-09.
  2. ^ McCarthy, David (2004). "H.C. Westermann at War: Art and Manhood in Cold War America". University of Delaware Press. p. 71. ISBN 087413871X. Retrieved 2013-05-16.
  3. ^ Livingstone, Marco (2000). Pop Art: A Continuing History. Thames and Hudson. pp. 72–73. ISBN 0-500-28240-4.
  4. ^ a b c Lanchner, Carolyn (2009). Roy Lichtenstein. Museum of Modern Art. pp. 11–14. ISBN 0870707701.
  5. ^ Schneckenburger, Honnef, Ruhrberg, Fricke (2000). Ingo, Walter F. (ed.). "Art of the 20th Century". Taschen. p. 321. ISBN 3822859079.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ a b c Strickland, Carol (2007). "The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern". Andrews McMeel Publishing. p. 174. ISBN 0740768727. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
  7. ^ a b Lichtenstein, Roy. "Whaam!". Tate Collection. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
  8. ^ "1960s: Whaam!". Lichtenstein Foundation. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
  9. ^ a b Waldman. "War Comics, 1962–64". p. 104. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. ^ Alloway. . p. 20.
  11. ^ Alloway. . p. 56.
  12. ^ Tomkins, Calvin (1988). "Roy Lichtenstein: Mural With Blue Brushstroke". Harry N. Abrams, Inc. p. 25. ISBN 0-8109-2356-4. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  13. ^ a b c Judd, Donald (2009). "Reviews 1962–64". In Bader, Graham (ed.). Roy Lichtenstein: October Files. The MIT Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-262-01258-4. Cite error: The named reference "RLOF4" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  14. ^ "Roy Lichtenstein: Biography of American Pop Artist, Comic-Strip-style Painter". Encyclopedia of Art. Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  15. ^ "Roy Lichtenstein: Biography of American Pop Artist, Comic-Strip-style Painter". Encyclopedia of Art. Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  16. ^ "Roy Lichtenstein: American artist". Reproduced Fine Art, Inc. Retrieved 2013-06-06.
  17. ^ Cronin, Brian. "Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent?: And Other Amazing Comic Book Trivia!". Penguin Books. Retrieved 2013-06-06.
  18. ^ Collett-White, Mike (2013-02-18). "Lichtenstein show in UK goes beyond cartoon classics". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2013-06-08.
  19. ^ Hoang, Li-mei (2012-09-21). "Pop art pioneer Lichtenstein in Tate Modern retrospective". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2013-06-08.
  20. ^ Brown, Mark (2013-02-18). "Roy Lichtenstein outgrew term pop art, says widow prior to Tate show: New insights come as most comprehensive show of artist's work ever attempted brings together 125 paintings and sculptures". The Guardian. Retrieved 2013-06-15.
  21. ^ Clark, Nick (2013-02-18). "Whaam! artist Roy Lichtenstein was 'not a fan of comics and cartoons'". The Independent. Retrieved 2013-06-15.
  22. ^ "Christie's to offer a Pop Art masterpiece: Roy Lichtenstein's Woman with Flowered Hat". ArtDaily. Retrieved 2013-06-07.
  23. ^ "Chronology". Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. Retrieved 2013-06-09.
  24. ^ a b Waldman. "War Comics, 1962–64". p. 105. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  25. ^ a b c d Waldman. "War Comics, 1962–64". p. 104. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  26. ^ Monroe, Robert (1997-09-29). "Pop Art pioneer Roy Lichtenstein dead at 73". Associated Press. Retrieved 2013-06-15.
  27. ^ Coplans (ed.). . p. 39. ...Whaam I (1963), on the other hand, is a diptych with a clearly linked pictorial narrative...
  28. ^ Archer, Michael (2002). "The Real and its Objects". Art Since 1960 (second ed.). Thames & Hudson. p. 25. ISBN 0-500-20351-2.
  29. ^ Coplans (ed.). . p. 164.
  30. ^ Waldman. "War Comics, 1962–64". p. 104. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  31. ^ Arnason, H. H. (1986). "Pop Art, Assemblage, and Europe's New Realism". History of Modern Art (third ed.). Prentice Hall, Inc./Harry N. Abrams, Inc. p. 458. ISBN 0-13-390360-5.
  32. ^ Arnason, H. H., Daniel Wheeler (revising author third edition), and Marla F. Prather (revising author, fourth edition) (1998). "Pop Art and Europe's New Realism". History of Modern Art: Painting • Sculpture • Architecture • Photography (fourth ed.). Harry N. Abrams, Inc. pp. 538–540. ISBN 0-8109-3439-6. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  33. ^ Waldman. "War Comics, 1962–64". p. 95. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  34. ^ Waldman. "War Comics, 1962–64". p. 105. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  35. ^ Pierre, José (1977). An Illustrated History of Pop Art. Eyre Methuen. p. 91. ISBN 0-413-38370-9.
  36. ^ Lobel, Michael. "Technology Envisioned: Lichtenstein's Monocularity". In Bader (ed.). pp. 123–24. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  37. ^ Bailey, Martin (2013-02-13). "Who opposed a £4,665 Lichtenstein?". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 2013-02-19.
  38. ^ Smart, Alastair (2013-02-23). "Lichtenstein, at Tate Modern, review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2013-06-15.
  39. ^ Searle, Adrian (2013-02-18). "Roy Lichtenstein: too cool for school?". The Guardian. Retrieved 2013-06-15.

References

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