Introduction
Artists Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol were among the first Pop artist in America; their artwork made them very famous in America and across the globe. Pop art is referred to as an art movement that began in 1950s in Great Britain and later spread to United States of America in the late 1950s.It is a type is art that showcases challenge to cultures of fine art through involving imagery from renown cultures like news, advertising and many others. This paper will clearly show the comparison between the motives for painting, personal life, works of art, style of painting and drawing type for artists Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warh.
Roy Litchtenstein was am American sculptor, Pop artist, lithographer and a painter, he was born in New York in 1923. His passion for art began when he was still a young man, where he joined Art students League in 1939 , in 1940 to 1943, he joined Ohio college after war service that began from 1943 to 1946,Roy went back to Ohio college from 1946 to 1949 and taught in the same college until 1951 and was supervised by Hoyt L. Sherman who is believed to be his inspiration and through that, Roy named a studio Art center after his supervisor and in the same year he was in a position to set his first solo exhibition. In 1961, Roy created one of his first paintings and named I'd Popeye; he later began to set his interest mainly on human figures which were shown on cartoons during that time and came up with other characters such as Mickey Mouse. In 1960s he became famous and one of the top pop artist in united states or paintings that he created by getting them from comic books especially DC comics. The unique part about Roy is that he did not copy comic pages as they appeared on the books, but applied a unique and complex way that involved creating the image as a new dramatic composition, a good example is the image of the Drawing Girl, he also involved the text of the comic book panels and visual elements. He also used bold colors and Born - Day dots in his art work and a good example of this is his Landscape pictures which indicates his interest, he also made different media works by using a unique plastic paper known as Rowlux that was characterised by a shimmery surface and suggested movement, motors and metal; held great interest of the current art drove him to creating several art works such as Matisse, Cezanne and Picasso.
Despite of being an outstanding pop artist, Lichtenstein was a great printmaker in his entire career, and his prints played an important role in recognising printmaking as a useful form of art in 1960s and Brushstroke is an example of his printmaking. It was used in Abstract Expressionism and many. Abstract Expressionist artists , used it as an instrument to communicate feelings such that is was used to show mockery of Roy's aspiration, suggested that although many of the Abstract Expressionists artists did not like commercialization, did not mean it will not affect and especially the fact that their pictures were formed in series by use of the same motifs throughout. Lichtenstein was also attracted by the way abstract cartoonist drew diagonal lines as away of indicating a reflective surface or showing the presence of a mirror.In1970s, Roy had tried to create away of showing an image of a mirror or reflection in the his previous works, this was a force driven though show the relationship between women and mirror as far as contemporary culture and historical artworks are concerned; an example is the image of Mirror 1 that was created in 1977.
Andrew Warhol was born in August 1928 in Pennsylvania and his parents were immigrants from Slovakian ; his father was a constructor worker and his mother was an embroiderer. They were devoted Byzantine Catholics who never missed Amy mass for what ever reasons and they also practiced Slovakian culture and heritage while they were still living in the eastern region of Europe. Unfortunately, at the age of eight years, Warhol suffered from a fatal disease that affects his nervous system that left him bedridden for a couple of months. For the months that Warhol was bedridden, his mother who was by then a skillful artist, began to train him how to draw and as time went by, drawing became Warhol’s hobby and he began preaching it during his free time. He was also a fan of movies and when his mother bought him a camera when he was nine years old, he began taking lots of pictures, developed film in a makeshift darkroom that he set up in his parent's basement. He went to Holmes Elementary school where he studied art classes that were offered free of charge. In 1949, Warhol graduated from college with a degree in fine art he moved to New York for further studies as a commercial artist. In 1950s he secured a job with Glamour magazine and became one of the successful commercial artists and worn a lot of award for his unique way style of drawing by using blotted line and rubber stamps.
Late 1950s, he began to have interest in painting and started by using pop art painting which focused on mass produced commercial goods. In 1962, he exhibited his iconic paintings of Campbell's soup canvas that created a lot of attention in the art world and led him to the limelight for the very first time. The next painting that Warhol created, illustrated a picture of a Coca cola vacuum cleaner and hamburgers ; he also painted popular people using clear and garish colors and one of the famous images included; Elizabeth Tylor, Mick Jagger, Moa Zedong and Marilyn Monroe.This was a golden opportunity that opened doors for Warhol because as the portraits became famous he stared receiving commissions from celebrities and socialists In 2008 his painting that was known as Eight Pelvises was bought again for $ 100 million which made it to be one of the most valuable paintings in the world.In1964 he opened an art studio known as The Factory which became one of the New York city's cultural hotspot ; it was on of the places where the rich, celebrities, socialites and celebrities held parties. In the 1970s, Warhol started venturing into other forms of artistic such as writing books where he wrote a book known as Exposures and combined it with a book that he had written in1967, Andy Warhol's Index. He also ventured into film production where he created about sixty films that included famous movies such as Sleep that was about a poet ,John Giorno sleeping for six hours and Eat which was about man eating mushrooms for forty five minutes. He practiced in different fields such as photography and sculpture and in 1980s, he ventured into Television where he hosted a popular shows known as Andy Warhol's television and Andy Warhol fifteen minutes on MTV.
The history of the two artists, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, clearly indicates that they were both driven by different motives for paintings for instance, Roy knew from the beginning that his passion lied on art and he began art classes when he was young, Andy on the other hand, his passion for art was driven by circumstances, for example when he was sick and bedridden, that's when his mother began to train him has to draw and with time drawing became passion. Andy Warhol's personal life was very different from Roy's for example apart from painting, Andy Warhol also did photography, he was a filmmaker and also hosted different television shows while Roy was a lithographer, sculptor and a painter ; Andy also lived a celebrity kind of life where in interacted with the likes of Lou Reed. Andy Warhol was also a writer where he wrote two books Andy Warhol's Index and Exposures but Roy Lichtenstein focused only on paintings. Roy Lichtenstein’s and Andy Warhol's works were classicism; this is illustrated from their different drawings such as Landscape, the mirror and brushstroke, as well as the portraits created by Andy.
