Roy Lichtenstein – Reclining Nude

Reclining Nude, from Expressionist Woodcut Series, 1980
Corlett 172

• Artist: Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997)
• Medium: Woodcut in colours on Arches Cover paper
• Dimensions (block): 715 × 850 mm (28 1/8 × 33 1/2 in)
• Dimensions (sheet): 885 × 1020 mm (34 3/4 × 40 1/8 in)
• Edition: Edition of 50
• Signature: Signed, dated and numbered in pencil 
• Publisher: Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles — blindstamp recto, ink stamp verso 

Reclining Nude is a color woodcut on Arches Cover paper, executed in 1980 by Roy Lichtenstein — one of the defining figures of American Pop Art and one of the most celebrated and widely collected artists of the twentieth century — signed, dated, and numbered in pencil from the edition of 50, published by Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles, bearing their blindstamp on the recto and ink stamp on the verso, presented as the full sheet and framed, catalogued as Corlett 172.

The Expressionist Woodcut Series stands as one of the most conceptually rich and technically ambitious bodies of work in Lichtenstein's printed oeuvre — a body of work in which the artist, celebrated for his Pop Art appropriation of comic strip imagery, turned his attention to the visual language of German Expressionism, deliberately adopting the bold, gouged, emotionally charged woodcut technique pioneered by artists such as Kirchner, Munch, and Nolde. The series represents a characteristically Lichtenstein gesture of appropriation and reinterpretation — taking a historically loaded artistic tradition and subjecting it to his own ironic, formally rigorous, and conceptually precise visual sensibility, producing works that are simultaneously homage and critique, celebration and deconstruction.

In Reclining Nude, Lichtenstein applies this Expressionist visual language to one of the most enduring subjects in the history of Western art — the reclining female nude — rendering the subject with the bold, gouged lines and dramatic tonal contrasts characteristic of the woodcut medium at its most expressive, while retaining the formal precision, graphic clarity, and conceptual self-awareness that define his practice across every medium. Printed on Arches Cover paper — a premium heavyweight support particularly well suited to the physical demands of woodblock printing — and published by Gemini G.E.L., one of the most prestigious and technically accomplished fine art print publishers in the United States, with a roster including Rauschenberg, Johns, and Hockney, this impression carries a production and publication history of the highest distinction.

The work is in very good condition.