Mirror
Medium: Screenprint in colors on 4-ply board
Year: 1990
Sheet: 10 x 7 1/4 inches (25.4 x 18.4 cm)
Edition: 250
Artist’s Proofs: 50 AP
Printers: Stanley Baden, Aiko Baden, and Kenneth Baden, Los Angeles
Publishers: The Artist and Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles
To benefit the U.S. Senate campaign of Harvey Gantt
Literature: Corlett 246
Roy Lichtenstein Catalogue Raisonne: RLCR 3904
Mirror, 1990 (RLCR 3904) | Catalogue entry | Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné
Signed, numbered and dated in pencil along lower edge with the publisher’s blindstamp
Mirror is a late print by Roy Lichtenstein that belongs to one of the most reduced and conceptually focused series of his career. At first glance, the image appears austere: a white central field, sharply framed in black and surrounded by a yellow border, contains a constellation of black diagonal bars suspended in space. Nothing in the composition resembles a mirror in any literal sense, yet the title immediately frames the viewer’s perception and activates a set of visual and intellectual expectations. The diagonal black elements function as abstract surrogates for reflection. Their varying lengths and orientations suggest fractured angles of view, shifts in perspective, or the visual dislocation produced by reflective surfaces. Rather than offering an image to be reflected, Lichtenstein presents the effect of reflection as a constructed graphic language. The mirror is reduced to an idea: fragmented, unstable, and resolutely flat.
Mirrors occupied a crucial place in Lichtenstein’s work from the late 1960s onward. He was drawn to their paradoxical status as images that are not images, surfaces that promise truth while offering only distortion and mediation. In his hands, the mirror becomes a conceptual device rather than an object. It allows him to question perception, representation, and the act of looking itself. In Mirror, reflection is no longer optical or experiential; it is diagrammatic, composed, and fixed.
The irony at the core of the work is unmistakable. Presented as a mirror, the print cannot reflect anything. It offers no feedback, no confirmation of the viewer’s presence. Instead, it stages the idea of reflection through a medium, screenprint, that is inherently reproductive and static. Lichtenstein deliberately adopts the most conventional signs of framing and presentation, only to empty them of their expected function. The result is a mirror that reflects nothing but the structure of representation itself. The yellow border further emphasizes the print’s objecthood, acting as both frame and signal, reminding the viewer that this is a constructed image rather than a perceptual device.
The release context adds a final, significant layer of meaning. Mirror was produced in 1990 to benefit the U.S. Senate campaign of Harvey Gantt, the Democratic challenger to Jesse Helms. Lichtenstein’s contribution is notable for its restraint. Rather than employing explicit political imagery, he offered a work grounded in abstraction and intellectual distance. In this setting, the mirror can be read as quietly political: a refusal of spectacle, a denial of easy reflection, and an insistence on critical awareness. Seen in its entirety, Mirror operates on multiple registers. It is a late formal investigation, a conceptual meditation on reflection and representation, and a discreet political gesture. The work exemplifies Lichtenstein’s ability to maintain clarity and irony even at the intersection of art, perception, and civic engagement—never shouting, always precise.
Auction Results
Christie’s online: 18 December 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000 – 6,000
USD 9,450
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Mirror, 1990
Screenprint in colors on board
Signed, numbered and dated ’85/250 rf Lichtenstein ’90’ (lower edge)
This work is number 85 from an edition of 250 plus 50 artist’s proofs
Phillips New-York: 24 October 2024
Estimated: USD 4,000 – 6,000
USD 7,620
Screenprint in colors on Museum Board
Signed, dated and numbered ‘AP 43/50’ in pencil
An artist’s proof, the edition was 250
Presently contained within a black and yellow custom presentation frame by Christian Burnoski
Heritage Auctions: 24 October 2023
Estimated: USD 4,000 – 6,000
USD 6,250
ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Mirror, 1990
Screenprint in colors on board
Edition: 146/250
Signed, editioned, and dated in pencil along lower edge
SBI Art Auction: 27 May 2023
Estimated: JPY 500,000 – 800,000
JPY 862,500 / USD 6,135
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Mirror, 1990
Screenprint
Signed, dated and numbered
From the edition of 250
Heritage Auctions: 26 October 2022
Estimated: USD 4,000 – 6,000
USD 8,750
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Mirror, 1990
Screen-print in colors on 4-ply board
Signed, numbered ‘205/250’ and dated in pencil along lower edge