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If your first thought when someone says "Pop Art" is Andy Warhol, the Whitney Museum wants you to spend a little more time with the other giant of the movement.
Opening October 11, “Roy Lichtenstein: Like New” is a new exhibition that reexamines the artist whose comic-book heroines, Ben-Day dots and larger-than-life paintings redefined American art. Bringing together more than 130 works across 60 years, the show argues that Lichtenstein wasn't simply painting comics—he was asking questions about originality, reproduction and the way images spread through culture that feel surprisingly relevant in the age of memes, Instagram and AI-generated art.
The exhibition traces Lichtenstein's career from the early 1940s through the 1990s, with paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, collages and even film. Visitors can expect many of his best-known works, including Look Mickey (1961), Girl with Ball (1961), Masterpiece (1962), Drowning Girl (1963), Happy Tears (1964) and Little Big Painting (1965), alongside lesser-known pieces.
One of the biggest draws is a recreation of Lichtenstein's landmark 1962 debut at Leo Castelli Gallery, which reunites all eight paintings from the exhibition for the first time. The Whitney has even reconstructed the intimate gallery layout so visitors can experience the paintings much as audiences did more than six decades ago, when Lichtenstein became one of the defining figures of Pop Art. Additionally, three of Lichtenstein's murals will be recreated, including a nearly 96-foot-long version of Greene Street Mural (1983). Outside the museum, artist and guest curator Alex Da Corte has recreated Girl in Window (1964), one of Lichtenstein's most recognizable images.
Rather than treating Lichtenstein as a relic of the 1960s, the exhibition makes the case that his work anticipated today's endless cycle of screenshots, reposts, remixes and recycled visual culture. Long before we were copying and pasting images with a tap, Lichtenstein was exploring what happened when familiar pictures were enlarged, repeated and stripped from their original context.
The exhibition also includes works by artists such as Louise Lawler, Richard Pettibone and Sturtevant, highlighting the influence Lichtenstein had on later generations.
Roy Lichtenstein: Like New opens October 11 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with member previews running October 8 through 10. Timed tickets are on sale now.