Roy Lichtenstein never shied away from the fact that his paintings were based on copies of comic strips. But some critics of one of the founders of American pop art have long argued that “copying” was too polite a term. Now, a new film alleges that hundreds of his pieces of work can be traced to other artists.
“It’s called stealing,” said comic strip artist Hy Eisman, who has just turned 96 and only recently discovered that Lichtenstein had reproduced one of his images in the 1960s. “I worked like a dog on this stupid page and this guy has $20m to show for it. If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be [funny].”
