This beautiful brass relief sculpture is dated 1970 and is numbered 75/100. Our version is mounted in a frame and signed on a plaque affixed to the reverse. In this work Lichtenstein looked back at arte moderne of the 1930s, specifically the ‘Heads’ painted by Russian constructivist Alexei Jawlensky, in which the language of Cubism was reinterpeted to the forms of the machine age.
Lichtenstein said about this work "What interested me was - ‘what in the world a modern head could be about' - I mean to make a man look as if it’s been made by an engineering draftsman." Accordingly, he recreated an arte moderne painting as an engineered and machined work in solid brass.
Lichtenstein is a central figure in the 20th century art historical canon, most famous for his early Pop Art work, and accordingly his work is represented in the collections of major museums worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris.
An example of this work is illustrated in M-L. Corlett, The prints of Roy Lichtenstein, a Catalogue Raisonne, 1948-1993, New York, 1994, No. 20, p. 33, and also in the online Catalogue Raisonne