Brushstroke on Canvas
Medium: Lithograph printed in colors on Rives BFK wove paper
Year: 1989
Image: 33 7/8 x 32 1/4 inches (85.9 x 81.9 cm)
Sheet: 37 7/8 x 36 1/2 inches (96.2 x 92.2 cm)
Edition: 40
Artist’s Proofs: 18 AP
Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Printer: Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York
Literature: Corlett 234
Roy Lichtenstein Catalogue Raisonne: RLCR 3780
Brushstroke on Canvas, 1989 (RLCR 3780) | Catalogue entry | Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné
Signed, dated and numbered in pencil with the blindstamps of the publisher and the printer
Brushstroke on Canvas continues Roy Lichtenstein’s sustained examination of painterly gesture and its transformation into image. Created in 1989, the work belongs to the final phase of his career, during which he revisited foundational motifs with greater compositional freedom while maintaining strict formal control. Here, the brushstroke is no longer isolated or monumentalized; it is embedded within a complex spatial construction that stages illusion against flatness. The composition is asymmetrical and deliberately unstable. A vertical cluster of multicolored strokes occupies the left side of the image, while a large diagonally striped form on the right evokes the silhouette of a stretched canvas or abstract support. Beneath them, a horizontal brown band, suggestive of a ground or base, anchors the scene. The background is filled with a dense black-and-white pattern that eliminates depth and resists pictorial illusion. Throughout, Lichtenstein juxtaposes simulated painterly marks with graphic textures, creating a visual tension between surface and representation.
READ ABOUT BRUSHSTROKES PAINTINGS
Conceptually, Brushstroke on Canvas operates as a quiet but incisive commentary on painting itself. By placing the brushstroke in dialogue with a striped, canvas-like form, Lichtenstein collapses distinctions between subject and support, image and object. The title underscores this ambiguity, implying a painterly act while presenting only its graphic simulation. The work reflects Lichtenstein’s enduring engagement with Abstract Expressionism, approached not through opposition, but through analytical distance. Released at a moment when Lichtenstein’s legacy was already firmly established, the print exemplifies his late-career clarity. Rather than revisiting Pop imagery or popular culture, he turns inward, refining a visual language that interrogates authorship, originality, and the mythology of expressive painting. Brushstroke on Canvas stands as a measured and reflective work, emblematic of an artist who consistently transformed art history into both subject and material.
Auction Results
SBI Art Auction: 23 May 2025
Estimated: JPY 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
JPY 2,185,000 / USD 15,330
Roy LICHTENSTEIN
Brushstroke on Canvas (Corlett 234), 1989
Lithograph
Signed, dated and numbered on the lower right
From the edition of 40
Sotheby’s New-York: 22 October 2021
Estimated: USD 8,000 – 12,000
USD 27,720
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923 – 1997)
Brushstroke on Canvas (Corlett 234), 1989
Lithograph printed in colors on Rives BFK wove paper
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 24/40
Sotheby’s New-York: 23 October 2017
Estimated: USD 8,000 – 12,000
USD 16,250
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Brushstroke on Canvas (C. 234), 1989
Lithograph printed in colors on Rives BFK paper
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 15/40
Doyle New-York: 25 April 2016
Estimated: USD 8,000 – 12,000
USD 13,750
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
BRUSHSTROKE ON CANVAS (C. 234)
Color lithograph on BFK Rives paper
Signed, dated and numbered 31/40 in pencil