This book compiles Roy Lichtenstein's most important works.
Roy demonstrated artistic and musical ability early on: he drew, painted, and sculpted as a teenager and spent many hours at the American Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Modern Art. He played piano and clarinet and developed an abiding love of jazz, frequenting Midtown nightspots to hear it. Lichtenstein attended the Franklin School for Boys, a private high school, graduating in 1940. That summer, he studied painting and drawing with Reginald Marsh. In September, he entered Ohio State University (OSU). His early artistic idols were Rembrandt, Honoré Daumier, and Picasso, and he often said that Guernica (1937; Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid) was his favorite painting.
 
 
He earned his Doctorate in Fine Arts from Ohio State University in 1949.
 
His early works were in the Abstract Expressionist style, but after 1957–1958, he began experimenting with images taken from mint bubble gum comics, freely interpreted and mixed with images from the Old West paintings of another American artist, Frederic Remington. From 1961 onward, he devoted himself entirely to producing art through mass-produced commercial images.
 
His comic strips, such as Good Morning, Darling (1964, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York), are enlargements of cartoon characters, reproduced by hand, using the same dot technique and bright primary colors used in printing.
 
His later works, which include reproductions of popular romance novel characters, stylized landscapes, and postcard copies of classical temples, show the influence of artists Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.