Bull VII
Medium: Lithograph, screen-print and line-cut printed in colors on Arjomari paper
Year: 1973
Image: 24×32 inches (60.9 x 83.7 cm)
Sheet: 27 x 34 7/8 inches (68.4 x 88.6 cm)
Edition: 26
Artist’s Proofs: 9 AP
Publisher: Gemini G.E.L.
Literature: Corlett 122, RLCR 2154
Bull VII, 1973 (RLCR 2154) | Catalogue entry | Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné
Signed, dated and numbered in pencil with the publisher’s blindstamp and inkstamp on the verso
Bull VII presents a full-bodied bull in strict profile, occupying the center of the composition with monumental clarity. The animal is constructed through a bold system of flat white and deep blue shapes, outlined in thick black contours that define its anatomy with deliberate simplification. Behind it, a field of tightly spaced red diagonal stripes replaces any illusion of depth, while a flat yellow band anchors the figure to the ground. The image is at once immediate and highly constructed. The bull is recognizable, yet stripped of naturalistic detail. Musculature, volume, and texture are reduced to graphic oppositions: positive and negative, blue and white, line and surface. The result is not a depiction of a bull, but a visual statement about how a bull can be represented.
Despite its apparent simplicity, Bull VII is technically sophisticated. Produced at Gemini G.E.L., one of the most important print studios of the postwar period, the work combines multiple printmaking techniques: lithograph, screenprint, and linecut. The image is built through four distinct color runs. Yellow and blue are achieved through lithography, providing smooth, even tonal fields. The red diagonal background is executed via screenprint, introducing a mechanical regularity that contrasts with the drawn qualities of the lithographic elements. Finally, the black contour is produced through linecut on zinc, giving the outline a sharper, more assertive presence. This layering of processes is essential. Lichtenstein is not simply reproducing an image, he is orchestrating different print languages within a single work, reinforcing his ongoing exploration of how images are constructed through systems.
Bull VII was published in 1973 by Gemini G.E.L. in a highly limited edition of 26 impressions, accompanied by a small number of artist’s proofs and workshop impressions. The project was supervised by master printer Kenneth Tyler, whose collaboration with Lichtenstein produced some of the most technically ambitious prints of the period.
Although created alongside the celebrated Bull Profile series, Bull VII stands apart. It is not part of the sequential deconstruction seen in that series, where the animal is progressively abstracted across six prints. Instead, Bull VII operates as a synthesis: a resolved image in which abstraction and representation coexist in equilibrium.
The bull is a subject loaded with art historical weight: from prehistoric cave painting to Picasso’s variations. Yet Lichtenstein approaches it without expression or symbolism in the traditional sense. There is no aggression, no movement, no narrative. The animal stands still, almost neutral. What matters is not the subject, but the system that produces it. The red striped background denies spatial depth, flattening the image into a decorative field. The blue shapes that define the body disrupt anatomical logic, emphasizing pattern over structure. Even the outline, while descriptive, functions as a boundary rather than a contour of volume.
In this sense, Bull VII is less about the bull than about the act of representation itself. Lichtenstein reduces the subject to its visual essentials and then rebuilds it through a controlled, reproducible language. The work becomes a meditation on how images can be simplified, codified, and ultimately detached from their original meaning.
Auction Results
Pop Impressions: Prints from the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein
Sotheby’s New-York: 15 April 2026
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 96,000
NEW AUCTION RECORD FOR BULL VII
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923 – 1997)
Bull VII (Corlett 122; RLCR 2154), 1973
Lithograph, screenprint and linecut printed in colors on Arjomari paper
Signed in pencil, dated and inscribed A/P III
This impression is one of nine artist’s proofs aside from the numbered edition of 26
With the blindstamp of the printer and publisher, Gemini G.E.L.
And with their inkstamp on the verso
Christie’s New-York: 16 April 2025
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 63,000
AUCTION RECORD FOR BULL VII
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Bull VII (Corlett 122), 1973
Lithograph, screenprint and line-cut in colors on Arjomari paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 26⁄26
(there were also nine artist’s proofs)
Sotheby’s New-York: 30 March 2023
Estimated: USD 12,000 – 18,000
USD 48,260
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923 – 1997)
Bull VII, 1973
Lithograph, screen-print and line-cut printed in colors on Arjomari paper
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 18/26