Sotheby’s Unveils Major Roy Lichtenstein Sale, Featuring Rare Works from the Artist’s Family Collection, Estimated at $35 Million

The collection spans four pivotal decades of Lichtenstein’s artistic journey, tracing his evolution from Abstract Expressionism into his signature Pop art style in the 1960s. It continues through his exploration of modern art themes in the 1970s, his celebrated “Reflections” series from the 1980s, and culminates with his famous interiors and nudes of the 1990s.

Executed across painting, drawing, sculpture, and prints, the works on offer consistently display the artist’s distinct humor, intellectual rigor, and joie de vivre. “I’ll let art historians speak about the loftier aspects of my father’s work, but what I most appreciate is the sense of humor embedded in all of it,” says Mitchell Lichtenstein. “It’s a wry humor that was part of who he was every day. Yet though there’s so much humor in his work, to my father art was all about composition. When asked for comment about his subject matter, he often said ‘It’s just marks on a page.’”

Leading the sale are several key lots including the striking painting Reflections: Art (1988), estimated at $4 million to $6 million; the compelling wood sculpture Woman: Sunlight, Moonlight (1996), also estimated at $4 million to $6 million; and the painting Stretcher Frame with Cross Bars III (1968), with an estimate of $2.5 million to $3.5 million.

“This phenomenal group of works provide a front row seat to Lichtenstein’s incomparable genius,” says David Galperin, Sotheby’s Vice Chairman, Head of Contemporary Art, Sotheby’s New York. “Lichtenstein’s imagery continues to spark conversation as vividly today as it did at the time of its creation…The full scope of the offering is a rich and varied selection that will resonate with collectors around the world—there is truly something for everyone.”