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Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!

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Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!
ArtistRoy Lichtenstein
Year1963
TypePop art
Dimensions203.2 cm × 172.7 cm (80 in × 68 in)

Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!, (sometimes Okay Hot-Shot or Okay, Hot-Shot) is a 1963 pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein that uses his Ben-Day dots style and a text balloon. It is one of several examples of military art that Lichtenstein created between 1962 and 1964, including several with aeronautical themes like this one. It was inspired by panels from four different comic books.

Background

Sources
Plane
Text bubble
Pilot
Graphic onomatopoeia
The sources for Okay Hot-Shot, Okay! are All American Men of War #89 (page 8), January–February 1962, National Periodical Publications (DC) (upper left), G.I. Combat #94 (j), June–July 1962, National Periodical Publications (DC) (lower left), All American Men of War #89 (page 2 - Okay, Hot-Shot), January–February 1962, National Periodical Publications (DC) (upper right), All American Men of War #90, March–April 1962, National Periodical Publications (DC) (lower center and right).[1]

During the late 1950s and early 1960s a number of American painters began to adapt the imagery and motifs of comic strips. Lichtenstein made drawings of comic strip characters in 1958. Andy Warhol produced his earliest paintings in the style in 1960. Lichtenstein, unaware of Warhol's work, produced Look Mickey and Popeye in 1961.[2] Soon, Lichtenstein advanced from animated cartoons to more serious themes such as romance and wartime armed forces depictions.[3] 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."[3] The work was inspired by five different comic book panels made by Russ Heath and Irv Novick.[4] The plane, the pilot, the text balloon and the graphic onomatopoeia each comes from a panel from a different comic book.[1]

Lichtenstein was a trained United States Army pilot, draftsman and artist as well as a World War II (WWII) veteran who never saw active combat.[5][6] His list of aeronautical themed works is extensive. Within that genre, Lichtenstein has produced several works featuring pilots situated in cockpits during air combat such as Jet Pilot (1962), Brattata (1962), Bratatat! (1963), and Okay Hot-Shot, Okay! (1963).[7] Some sources list this along with Whaam! and Blam as one of Lichtenstein's most well-known examples of military art.[8]

Okay Hot-Shot, Okay! is one of several comics-based works, including Jet Pilot and Von Karp, inspired by the World War II Navajo U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Johnny Cloud of DC Comics' The Losers.[9] The January–February 1962 DC Comics' All-American Men of War issue #89 was the inspiration for several Lichtenstein paintings, providing two of the source panels of Okay Hot-Shot, Okay! as well as sources for Brattata, Blam, Whaam! and Tex![10] The graphite pencil sketch, Jet Pilot was also from that issue.[11]

Critical appraisal

In the source, the pilot wore traditional World War II headgear, but Lichtenstein altered the headgear to that of a cosmonaut, astronaut or modern air force pilot of the Cold War era.[12] Lichtenstein also shifted the subject so that his left iris is in the frame.[4] The work also is related to Lichtenstein's theme of "machine and embodied vision" as exhibited in works such as Crak!, Bratatat!, and Jet Pilot.[13]

The narrative content, "Okay, hot-shot, okay! I'm pouring!" is said to have a dual meaning that alludes to the painting style being made famous at the time by Jackson Pollock of poured painting, while simultaneously presenting its primary meaning of pouring ammunition at the enemy.[4][7]

In Lichtenstein's obituary, Los Angeles Times critic Christopher Knight said the use of color in this work harkened back to works by Morris Louis and the explosion's graphic elements recalled Kenneth Noland's target work.[14]

While melding the elements and motifs of panels from two artists, Lichtenstein simplified the hatching and use of color.[15]

Melodrama through heightened tension ties this with some of Lichtenstein's most notable works.[16]

In an account published in 1998 after Lichtenstein was famous, Irv Novick said that he had met Lichtenstein in the army in 1947 and, as his superior officer, had responded to Lichtenstein's tearful complaints about the menial tasks he was assigned by recommending him for a better job.[17] Jean-Paul Gabilliet has questioned this account, saying that Lichtenstein had left the army a year before the time Novick says the incident took place.[18] Bart Beaty, noting that Lichtenstein had appropriated Novick for works such as Whaam! and Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!, says that Novick's story "seems to be an attempt to personally diminish" the more famous artist.[17]

Sources

  1. ^ a b "Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!". LichtensteinFoundation.org. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  2. ^ Livingstone, Marco (2000). Pop Art: A Continuing History. Thames and Hudson. pp. 72–73. ISBN 0-500-28240-4.
  3. ^ a b Lanchner, Carolyn (2009). Roy Lichtenstein. Museum of Modern Art. pp. 11–14. ISBN 0-87070-770-1.
  4. ^ a b c Baker, R. C. (2011-04-06). "The Misbegotten Career of Roy Lichtenstein". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  5. ^ "Chronology". Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. Retrieved 2013-06-09.
  6. ^ McCarthy, David (2004). H.C. Westermann at War: Art and Manhood in Cold War America. University of Delaware Press. p. 71. ISBN 0-87413-871-X.
  7. ^ a b Pisano, Dominick A., ed. (2003). The Airplane in American Culture. University of Michigan Press. p. 275. ISBN 0-472-06833-4.
  8. ^ Lobel, Michael (2002). Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art. Yale University Press. p. 95. ISBN 0-300-08762-4.
  9. ^ "Character Sketch: The Comic That Inspired Roy Lichtenstein". Yale University Press. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  10. ^ Armstrong, Matthew (Autumn 1990). "High & Low: Modern Art & Popular Culture: Searching High and Low". 2 (6). Museum of Modern Art: 4–8, 16–17. Retrieved 2013-07-19. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ^ "Jet Pilot". LichtensteinFoundation.org. Retrieved 2013-06-24.
  12. ^ Pisano, Dominick A., ed. (2003). The Airplane in American Culture. University of Michigan Press. p. 276. ISBN 0-472-06833-4.
  13. ^ Lobel, Michael (2009). "Technology Envisioned: Lichtenstein's Monocularity". In Bader, Graham (ed.). Roy Lichtenstein. MIT Press. pp. 118–20. ISBN 978-0-262-01258-4.
  14. ^ Knight, Christopher (1997-09-30). "Pop Art Icon Lichtenstein Dies". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  15. ^ Lobel, Michael (2002). Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art. Yale University Press. p. 64. ISBN 0-300-08762-4.
  16. ^ Lobel, Michael (2002). Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art. Yale University Press. p. 139. ISBN 0-300-08762-4.
  17. ^ a b Beaty, Bart (2004). "Roy Lichtenstein's Tears: Art vs. Pop in American Culture". Canadian Review of American Studies. 34 (3): 249–268. Retrieved 2013-06-30.
  18. ^ Gabilliet, Jean-Paul (2009). Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic Books. University Press of Mississippi. p. 350. ISBN 1-60473-267-9.
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