In 2023, to mark the centenary of the artist’s birth, the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation donated some 100 prints – a substantial proportion of his oeuvre – to the Albertina, the British Museum and the Kunstmuseum Basel. The Albertina was the first to display its gift to the public, in 2024, and now the Kunstmuseum is following suit, exhibiting all 33 prints from the donation – many of which are making their public debut – and more than a dozen works already in its collection (22 August–14 March 2027). The work on view spans the artist’s career, from experiments with printmaking techniques in the 1940s to late pieces such as Wallpaper with Blue Floor Interior (1992), a towering five-panel screenprint nearly four metres wide, in which a swirling blue carpet nods to Lichtenstein’s love of Van Gogh. Even more impressive is Portrait (1989), the result of an 18-step process that involved lithography, woodcut, screen printing and wax printing.
Find out more from the Kunstmuseum Basel’s website.
Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary


