Compositions I, 1964
In 2018, the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation launched a comprehensive, long term collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art aimed at facilitating public access to the history of Roy Lichtenstein. The collection, The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation records and Roy Lichtenstein papers, will be made available for consultation by qualified researchers on the Foundation’s premises. Over the next few years select series will be made available online through the Archives of American Art’s website. Please note that as the Foundation continues to process, preserve and digitize its archival collections, some series may not be immediately accessible. Please contact the Foundation for more information.
The collection consists of approximately half a million documents, which includes accumulated contemporary documentation by Roy Lichtenstein and his studio staff of his art, commissions, editions and exhibitions. The Estate of Roy Lichtenstein initially donated the archives and reference library to the Foundation in 2002. The Foundation continues to collect and add to this comprehensive consultative library and full documentation of the artist’s life and work. The collection measures approximately 475 linear feet and dates circa 1872-2018. The collection also includes object, correspondence and exhibition files; biographical material; artwork documentation; catalogue raisonné research; reference material, including source clippings and scrapbooks; oral history interviews; photographs, including images of Roy Lichtenstein and his family and friends, artwork and installation shots; audiovisual material; printed material; catalogues and brochures; among other items. By 2023, most of the collection will be transferred to the Archives of American Art.
As the Foundation adds to its current websites, www.lichtensteinfoundation.org and its related sub-site www.imageduplicator.com, we hope to provide ready access to individuals searching for information about the archives, as well as Roy Lichtenstein’s biography, bibliography, exhibition history and other related and current art publications, installations and exhibitions.
We hope that this information will inspire new research and publications by distinguished art historians as well as by new generations of artists, critics and writers.