Red Lamp

Medium: Lithograph in colors on BFK Rives wove paper
Year: 1992
Image: 15 7/8 x 18 1/2 inches (40.4 x 47.1 cm)
Sheet: 21 1/2 x 24 inches (54.6 x 61 cm)
Edition: 250
Artist’s Proofs: 40 AP
Publishers: The Artist and Leo Castelli Gallery, New-York
Literature: Corlett 279
M. L. Corlett, The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein. A Catalogue Raisonné 1948-1997, New York 2002, no. 279

Roy Lichtenstein Catalogue Raisonne: RLCR 4150

Red Lamp, 1992 (RLCR 4150) | Catalogue entry | Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné

Signed, dated and numbered in pencil

This print was published to benefit Art Takes Care Benefit for the Village Nursing Home. The Art Takes Care Benefit for the Village Nursing Home (an AIDS and geriatric care facility) in New York was initiated by Leo Castelli as a celebration of his gallery’s 35th anniversary.

A perfectly framed vignette of Post-War America at home, Red Lamp sees Lichtenstein build upon his 1990 Interiors Series, a body of work that Leo Castelli acknowledged has become synonymous with the great Pop Artist. As the iconic gallerist once said, “what I see when I stand in front of any interior of Roy’s is a work of an important artist that I immediately recognize: a Calder, a blue sponge sculpture by Yves Klein, a Lichtenstein, a Johns from the eighties…” It was with Leo Castelli Gallery that Lichtenstein co-published this lithograph to benefit the Village Nursing Home, an AIDS and geriatric care facility in New York. Executed in the primary red and yellow hues and simplified comic-book style that launched his early career, Lichtenstein created a print that could only be recognized as his own. Drafted with a high vantage point, Lichtenstein invites the viewer into this imagined living room and evokes the sense that they too can plop into the waiting armchair.

Unlike many of his subjects, Lichtenstein’s musings on interior scenes began with prints before he ever rendered paintings of the same theme. On March 15th, 1989, Roy Lichtenstein became artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. Like many artists before, Rome would be a source of inspiration for Lichtenstein, but unlike his predecessors, the eternal forms of antiquity were not what caught his eye. Rather, Lichtenstein was struck by a furniture advertisement on the side of the road. Intrigued by the simultaneously inviting yet uninhabitable quality of the showroom in the ad, Lichtenstein spent the following evenings thumbing through the yellow pages with a pair of scissors, clipping similarly staged interiors. By removing any context of the interior where this armchair, table, and lamp might reside, in Red Lamp Lichtenstein conjures the furniture advertisements that initially inspired his Interior Series published with Gemini G.E.L. in 1990.

However, unlike the prints in the Interior Series, which depict elaborate scenes full of pattern, texture, and self-referential details, Red Lamp reflects the editorial decision often made by mid-century advertisers to highlight furniture in a void of negative space – encouraging the consumer to picture the piece of furniture in their own home. Former Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago Robert Fitzpatrick praised Lichtenstein’s interiors for masterfully displaying “folly of domestic conventions that alternately inspire and reflect these lifeless images.” A classic genre within the artistic canon, Lichtenstein turned to interiors as he became increasingly retrospective in his late career – repeatedly incorporating previous imagery into contemporary works and returning to the 1960’s comic-book style and color palette that that jumpstarted his career and the Pop movement.

Source: Phillips

Auction Results

Phillips New-York: 27 June 2024
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 25,000
USD 24,130

Doyle New-York: 30 April 2024
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 20,000
USD 21,760

SBI Art Auction: 28 January 2024
Estimated: JPY 1,500,000 – 2,500,000
JPY 4,140,000 / USD 27,935

ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Red Lamp (Corlett 279), 1992
Lithograph
Signed, dated and numbered on the lower part
From the edition of 250

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Bonhams LA: 3 October 2023
Estimated: USD 15,000 – 25,000
USD 21,760
Property Sold to Benefit the Westlund

Christie’s online: 19 July 2023
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 25,200

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Red Lamp, 1992
Screen-print in colors on Rives BFK paper
Signed and dated in pencil, numbered 99/250

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Maynards: 29 June 2022
Estimated: CAD 15,000 – 20,000
CAD 24,000 (Hammer)
CAD 29,520 / USD 22,930

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (American, 1923-1997)
Red Lamp, 1992
Silkscreen, #87/250
Signed and dated ’92

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Phillips London: 21 June 2021
Estimated: GBP 10,000 – 15,000
GBP 27,720 / USD 39,085

ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Red Lamp (C. 279), 1992
Lithograph in colors on BFK Rives paper
Signed, dated and numbered ‘AP 6/40’ in pencil

Rago Auctions: 16 June 2021
Estimated: USD 10,000 – 15,000
USD 25,000

ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Red Lamp, 1992
Lithograph in colors on BFK Rives paper
Signed, dated and numbered to lower edge ’57/250 Roy Lichtenstein 92′

Christie’s London: 1 April 2021
Estimated: GBP 8,000 – 12,000
GBP 47,500 / USD 65,710
AUCTION RECORD FOR RED LAMP

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Red Lamp, 1992
Lithograph in colors on BFK Rives wove paper
Signed and dated in pencil, inscribed and numbered AP 5/40
An artist’s proof aside from the edition of 250 impressions