Against Apartheid 1983

Roy Lichtenstein made this print, Against Apartheid, and it’s a powerful mix of his signature pop art style and something looser, more gestural. I can just imagine Lichtenstein, known for his meticulousness, experimenting with how the painting can come into being. The brushstrokes here are so direct, so…painterly! You see those drips of black paint, like tears? And the waves of green crashing in the background? I wonder if, while making it, he was thinking about how to charge this print with emotion, moving away from his usual cool remove. It’s like he’s saying, “Okay, I can do cool and detached, but I can also feel deeply and express it in a way that's raw, immediate." It makes me think about other artists who’ve mixed styles, like maybe de Kooning, but with that Lichtenstein twist of graphic punch. The contrast here makes the work so interesting. It’s like seeing a conversation between different parts of art history, and different sides of an artist, all in one go.