Perfectly timed with MOVE:DC, you’ll have the opportunity to see some amazing work by Roy Lichtenstein.

From now until mid-January, Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art will showcase Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, the artist’s biggest showing since his death in 1997. The 100+ collection spans several decades and showcases how he became a leading man in the Pop Art movement.

Characterized by using comic strips, advertisements and soup cans, the Pop Art movement transformed the mundane into something new and fresh. Lichtenstein painted with hard-edged lines and added basic artistic principles in “fixing” the images he used. He became well-known for employing the rule of thirds, complementary colors, and line repetitions.

“M-Maybe” from 1965

According to New York Times‘s Holland Cotter, there’s a reason why his work was so appealing.

The look of this art isn’t big, but it’s smart; cool and dry, but accessible. Connoisseurs and know-nothings alike can enjoy it, and for some of the same reasons. And there’s the recognition factor: very high. Once you’ve encountered his work, you’d know it anywhere. Catch a glimpse of a Lichtenstein out of the corner of your eye from a moving cab, and it will register, half-seen.

When NPR’s Susan Stamberg stopped by the exhibit to catch up with the gallery’s curator Harry Cooper, both looked at one of Lichtenstein’s paintings called “Ohh … Alright …” Taken from a comic book panel, the painting is of a woman on the phone. She’s beautiful, but appears troubled.

Lichtenstein’s “Ohh … Alright …”

“What I like about it is the way she’s holding the phone,” says Cooper. “She’s caressing the phone, and I think in a way she would rather have a relationship with the receiver than with whoever is on the other end of the line.”

We’ll never know the conversation that’s taking place, but Lichtenstein invites us into the story. Cooper says the artist “really looked hard for these comics that had a kind of crux of the story in them.”

Admission to the National Gallery of Art – like many museums in Washington DC – is free and open everyday with varying hours.

While at MOVE: DC, you should definitely squeeze some time into your itinerary and check this exhibit out.

You won’t be disappointed.

— Stew

(Photo Credit: 1,2, 3)