Artist-in-Residence

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein's work titled Untitled Shirt, object documentation.
Roy Lichtenstein, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, Untitled, 1979. Pigment on silk sateen. 30 x 36 inches (76.2 x 91.44 cm). Edition of 100. Commissioned by Artists Space, New York. Collection of The Fabric Workshop and Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Photo credit: Aaron Igler.

Roy Lichtenstein fashioned his 1979 Untitled shirt in collaboration with FWM and to benefit Artists Space, a not-for-profit visual arts organization in New York City. Produced as an edition of 100, the shirt was silkscreen printed with pigment on silk sateen and sewn into a basic shirt design, based on the artist’s specifications.

A non-representational print, the design of the shirt is unmistakably Lichtenstein. His signature Benday dots, stripes, and palette of primary colors comprise the abstract composition of diagonal bands of red, blue, yellow, black, and white. Lichtenstein was sensitive to the functionality of a shirt, as the stripes of color wrap around the body, alluding to the three-dimensional, curving form of its potential wearer. Made from silk, the drape of the shirt, too, emphasizes the dynamic play of the diagonal bands of color, which ripple and flow at the slightest movement.