Laurie Lambrecht: In Roy Lichtenstein’s Studio, 1990-1992

From May 27 to June 27, 2011 The Drawing Room in East Hampton is pleased to present the exhibition, "In Roy Lichtenstein’s Studio 1990-1992," photographs by Laurie Lambrecht. This unique body of work was photographed with a Hasselblad medium format camera while Lambrecht was working as Lichtenstein’s administrative assistant in his New York and Southampton, Long Island studios. During this period of immersion in Lichtenstein’s daily studio activities, Lambrecht created intimate images of the master pop artist at work, capturing the dynamic process that generated his monumental works of the 1990s.

Roy Lichtenstein was in his late sixties when the photographs were taken, and his retrospective at the Guggenheim was in the planning stages. His influence as America’s renown Pop artist was at its height. In Lambrecht’s respectful portraits, Lichtenstein is seen deeply engaged in the making of several important series of paintings: Reflections, his iconic modern living room interiors, and epic canvases inspired by Picasso’s weeping women, Van Gogh’s bedroom and Monet’s water lilies. These masterworks set the stage for Lambrecht’s own interiors in which her focus is the dazzling, organized atmosphere of Lichtenstein’s studio, his source materials from popular culture and the precise techniques he used to create an astounding body of work. Her camera finds Lichtenstein dwarfed by a ladder as he masks out passages of his mural size painting Van Gogh’s Bedroom. By contrast, another photograph reveals a more contemplative moment when the artist is seated and concentrating on the first traces of a large preliminary sketch taped to the studio wall.

See below for full press release and selected works.