Sunrise
from 7 Objects in a Box

Medium: Baked enamel on steel multiple
Year: 1966
Overall: 8 1/2  x 11 x 1 inches (21.6 x 27.9 x 2.5 cm)
Edition: 75
Artist’s Proofs: 25 AP
Publisher: Tanglewood Press, Inc., New York
Literature: Corlett p. 27

Signed in blue felt-tip pen on the reverse

Although well-known for his paintings that drew their subject matter from the melodrama played out between the covers of mass-market comic books, Roy Lichtenstein’s landscapes are an important part of his early oeuvre and did much to help develop and enunciate his iconic Pop language. Painted in 1965, Sunrise is one of a select group of landscapes that Lichtenstein painted incorporating his strong, bold lines and passages of high-keyed color together with his signature Ben-Day dots to capture the ethereal emotions and sensations conjured up by the warm rays of the rising sun. This rare example is the only one of the six sunrise works to have been executed as a painting, the others all having been fabricated in a variety of media ranging from screen-print on silk to porcelain enamel on perforated steel.

Sunrise, 1965

Christie’s New-York: 11 November 2014
Estimated: USD 12,000,000 – 18,000,000
USD 16,405,000

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), Sunrise | Christie’s (christies.com)

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Sunrise, 1965
Oil, Magna and graphite on canvas
36 1/8 x 68 3/8 inches (91.7 x 173.6 cm)

Both physically and metaphorically, the majestic red sun that emerges from the nest of cumulus white clouds lies at the very center of this painting. Not only does its searing core act as the focal point of the entire composition, it also becomes the source of many of the other elements that make up this painting. From the warm yellow rays of light that radiate out from the center to the blankets of dark shadow that cover the ground and the peaks of the clouds, Lichtenstein’s sun—much like the real thing—is the sustainer of all things. By the time he painted Sunrise, Lichtenstein’s graphic language had become so advanced that he was able to convey some of the most subtly nuanced areas of light and shadow to greater effect here than in many of his earlier works. The strong rays of the early morning sun are demarcated by solid bands of yellow tones deftly constrained by borders of black paint. In the lower portions of the canvas areas of red Ben-Day dots offer up a sensation of warm, hazy sunshine while passages of blue Ben-Day dots add a sense of depth and volume to the fluffy white cloud. Finally the artist makes a rare foray into chiaroscuro by laying down an area of red dots, overlaid with blue dots, to produce a passage of deeper shadow, a method that directly imitates the two-color printing process of early mass-commercial printing that energized Lichtenstein’s painting so much.

Auction Results

Christie’s New-York: 22 November 2022
Estimated: USD 10,000 – 15,000
USD 32,760

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Sunrise, from 7 Objects in a Box, 1965
Baked enamel on steel multiple
Signed in blue felt-tip pen on the reverse
Numbered ’38’ (the edition was 75 plus 25 artist’s proofs)