Peace Through Chemistry I

Artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923 - 1997)

Date1970

Mediumfive-color lithograph and silkscreen

DimensionsFrame: 37 5/8 x 63 5/8 in. (95.6 x 161.6 cm) Image: 31 3/4 x 57 1/2 in. (80.6 x 146.1 cm) Paper (approx): 37 x 63 in. (94 x 160 cm)

SignedRoy Lichtenstein '70

Credit LineGift of Barbara B. Millhouse

Object number1983.2.11

DescriptionRoy Lichtenstein developed his signature Pop art style by merging high-art formalism with material culture. Although he had studied art from an early age, it was not until his late thirties that he began experimenting with appropriated cartoon images from comic books, advertisements, and other popular imagery. These works varied from abstract to figurative as he continued to develop his own visual vocabulary, for which he quickly became famous. Several key elements make a work by Lichtenstein instantly recognizable: blown up images taken either directly from or inspired by comic strips or newspaper ads; the use of primary colors; and benday dots, creating uniform color areas organized by definitive black outlines. It was important to Lichtenstein that the viewer not see evidence of gesture or the artist’s hand in his artistic process, although the seemingly mechanical style and lowbrow subject matter led some to dismiss his work; in 1964, Life published an article entitled “Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?” [1] Years later, it became easier to recognize that Lichtenstein’s imagery is both coolly ironic and witty, and that his compositions were masterfully orchestrated.

Peace Through Chemistry I was the first of four print and one bronze versions produced at Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles, California. Lichtenstein collaborated with master printmaker Kenneth Tyler, who supervised the production of all the editions. The print in the collection of Reynolda House Museum of American Art is the fifth of six artist proofs done of this image. The horizontal rectangle is divided into three panels. Each third is halved by a strong diagonal running from bottom left to top right, making six right-angle triangles. The colors used are yellow, red, blue, and black on the white support. The yellow areas were printed first, followed by the flat areas of red, then benday dots in red and benday dots in blue, each by aluminum plate lithography using stencils hand-cut by Gemini technicians. Variation in tone is achieved by the differentiation in size of the red benday dots in the left panel and the superimposition of the blue benday dots on yellow in the right panel. The final key image was printed in black using silkscreen. These printmaking techniques are ideal for producing an overall consistency in flat, even color. Despite the high level of hand craftsmanship involved in the print’s production, the result appears to be mass-produced, unless the viewer looks more closely.

Sources for the composition of Peace Through Chemistry I can be found in Lichtenstein’s earlier series, Modern Painting, from 1967, in which the artist was inspired by Art Moderne motifs of the 1930s. The strong angularity of the composition is offset by the curvilinear lines of the microscope, gears, pulleys, and test tubes. The notches of the gears are echoed in the branching leaves and the fingers of the scientist holding a test tube from which a cloud of steam emanates. Stylized rays suggest sunlight and wings. In the right panel, the viewer perceives the geometric profile of a man, rendered as a comic book superhero holding a test tube. In the upper left of the center panel, another figure in profile examines the details of the leafy branch in the left panel through the eyepiece of a microscope.

The 1930s stylization, which Lichtenstein connected with the art commissions of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, seems especially appropriate to an apotheosis of science in its specific references to chemistry, biology, and engineering. What is less clear is Lichtenstein’s intent when he envisioned Peace Through Chemistry I in 1970. Was he being ironical at a time when the United States military used Agent Orange in Southeast Asia as part of a program to defeat the Vietcong by destroying both the forests and the livelihood of peasant farmers who might aid them? Could the title be a not-so-subtle reference to the advertising slogan of DuPont, “Better Things for Better Living…Through Chemistry”? Or is the scientist examining a branch under his microscope a reference to an olive branch of peace? Lichtenstein saw the image as “muralesque… a little like the W.P.A. murals… a play on Cubist composition,” so perhaps irony was not his goal. In the end both artist and image retain their ambiguity. [2]

Notes:
[1] Life56, no. 5 (January 31, 1964): 79–81, 83.
[2] Ruth Fine, Gemini G.E. L.: Art and Collaboration. Exhibition catalogue. (New York: Abbeville Press, in association with the National Gallery of Art, 1984), 193.

ProvenanceTo 1983
Barbara B. Millhouse, New York, NY and Winston-Salem, NC. [1]

From 1983
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, given by Barbara B. Millhouse on December 29, 1983. [2]

Notes:
[1] Deed of Gift, object file.
[2] See note 1.

Exhibition History1976
Twentieth Century American Print Collection opening
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (12/3/1976)

2006 - 2007
Modern Fun! Prints from the '70's and '80's
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (10/3/2006 - 1/28/2007)

2010 - 2011
Figuring Abstraction
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (10/30/2010 - 10/30/2011)
Published ReferencesReynolda House Annual Report, Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University, 2003.

Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Reynolda: Her Muses, Her Stories , with contributions by Martha R. Severens and David Park Curry (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Reynolda House Museum of American Art affiliated with Wake Forest University, 2017). pg. 184, 185

Status

Not on view

Collections