Girl with Beach Ball II 1977

Roy Lichtenstein made "Girl with Beach Ball II" without specifying the medium or date, but we can infer that it belongs to his pop art period in the 1960s. The artwork exemplifies Lichtenstein's appropriation of commercial printing techniques, especially his use of Ben-Day dots to create a sense of mass production. Lichtenstein appropriates the imagery of popular culture, specifically magazine ads, to show how advertising became the defining aesthetic and subject matter in the United States after the Second World War. During this time American society was undergoing massive change and art needed to take on new roles. Lichtenstein and other pop artists took on the task of questioning the role of the fine arts in a society dominated by consumer culture. To understand Lichtenstein’s contribution, we can consult magazines, advertisements, and art criticism from the period. Through these resources, we can better understand the complex relationships between art, commerce, and social change in postwar America.