Reflections on Soda Fountain
Medium: Screenprint in colors on Rives BFK paper
Year: 1991
Sheet: 36 3/4 x 38 1/2 inches (93.4 x 97.8 cm)
Image: 28 3/4 x 30 7/16 inches (73 x 77.3 cm)
Edition: 85
Artist’s Proofs: 30 AP
Publisher: The artist and Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles
Printer: Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles.
Literature: Corlett 257, Gemini 1498
Roy Lichtenstein Catalogue Raisonne: RLCR 4074
Signed dated and numbered in pencil with the blindstamp of the artist and the publisher
In the present work, we see a woman sitting at a soda fountain wearing glamorous white gloves, demurely playing with one of two drinking straws in her tall glass of soda. We cannot see her face, but we might imagine that she is engaged in conversation, and that the second straw in the glass perhaps belongs to an unseen companion. Lichtenstein’s composition splices the figure with a series of reflections, a theme that fascinated the artist throughout his career. From 1969 to 1971 he produced a series of works based on images of mirrors in retail catalogs and newspaper advertisements.
“Mirrors are flat objects that have surfaces you can’t easily see since they’re always reflecting what’s around them. There’s no simple way to draw a mirror, so cartoonists invented dashed or diagonal lines to signify ‘mirror’. Now, you see those lines and you know it means ‘mirror’ even though there are obviously no such lines in reality. If you put horizontal, instead of diagonal lines across the same object, it wouldn’t say ‘mirror’. It’s a convention that we unconsciously accept.”
Between 1988 and 1990 Lichtenstein made a series of works in which he used themes from earlier work, such as the brushstroke or an interior, together with the reflection motif. In Reflections on Soda Fountain, Lichtenstein has integrated images from his original comic strip appropriations with his system of codes for mirrors. The subject matter reflects the innocence and naiveté of American life during the 50s that so much of Lichtenstein’s early work portrays and also the reflections that he used repeatedly in the last three decades of his career. The work is a complex collage that the artist created as the maquette for a silkscreen which was published the following year. The collage is a fascinating example of Lichtenstein’s working method and intricate compositional technique. Lichtenstein layers pre-printed, patterned paper with hand-painted paper between his hard-edged line drawings to create an interior scene that is at once realistic and flattened. His collage technique echoes the duality that is inherent within his paintings; apparently naive but actually highly sophisticated. Lichtenstein’s calculated adaptations of cartoon images and America’s nostalgia for the past are a reminder that the simple surface of things does not necessarily correspond to or “reflect” a complex reality.
Auction Results
Pop Impressions: Prints from the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein
Sotheby’s New-York: 23 October 2025
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 82,550
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923 – 1997)
Reflections on Soda Fountain (Corlett 257; RLCR 4074), 1985
Screenprint in colors on BFK Rives wove paper
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 1/85
This impression is number 1 from the edition of 85 plus 30 artist’s proofs
Co-published by the artist and Gemini G.E.L.
With their blindstamp and inkstamp on the verso
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 70,350
Screenprint in colors on wove paper
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 51/85
(there were also 30 artist’s proofs)
Sotheby’s Cologne: 4 December 2024
Estimated: EUR 50,000 – 60,000
EUR 78,000 / USD 81,980
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923 – 1997)
Reflections on Soda Fountain, 1991
Screenprint in colours on BFK Rives paper
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 18/85
Bonhams LA: 1 October 2024
Estimated: USD 60,000 – 80,000
USD 70,350
Screenprint in colors on wove paper
Signed in pencil, dated and annotated ‘AP 30/30’
An artist’s proof, aside from the edition of 85
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 76,200
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (American, 1923–1997)
Reflections on Soda Fountain, 1991
10-color screenprint on Rives BFK paper
Signed, dated, and numbered AP 18/30 in pencil
Hindman Chicago: 25 April 2024
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 95,250
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (American, 1923–1997)
Reflections on Soda Fountain, 1991
10-color screenprint on Rives BFK paper
Signed, dated, and numbered 22/85 in pencil
Phillips New-York: 20 April 2023
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 95,250
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Reflections on Soda Fountain, from The Reflection Series (G. 1498, C. 257), 1991
Screen-print in colors on Rives BFK paper
Signed, dated and numbered 6/85 in pencil (there were also 30 artist’s proofs)
Bonhams Los Angeles: 29 March 2022
Estimated: USD 50,000 – 70,000
USD 137,812
AUCTION RECORD FOR REFLECTIONS ON SODA FOUNTAIN
Screen-print in colors on Rives BFK paper
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered 68/85
Christie’s New-York: 24 October 2018
Estimated: USD 40,000 – 60,000
USD 68,750
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Reflections on Soda Fountain, 1991
Screen-print in colors, on Rives BFK paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 56/85 (there were also 30 artist’s proofs)