Roy Lichtenstein didn’t hide where his images came from. He started with the cheapest images in America: romance and war comics, printed by the millions and thrown away. He searched them for moments of drama, then cropped, simplified and rewrote them until a busy page became a single, unforgettable image. Even the dots were borrowed. Ben-Day printing was a shortcut for adding colour to mass-produced comics. Lichtenstein recreated it by hand, turning a cheap commercial technique into one of the most recognizable styles in art history. In 2017, Masterpiece, a painting adapted from a romance comic, reportedly sold for $165 million. A disposable comic panel, designed to be read and turned past, could suddenly command the wall of a museum. #RoyLichtenstein #PopArt #ArtHistory #ContemporaryArt #AmericanArt #BlueChipArt #GuyHepner