Lichtenstein’s Reflections Series explores themes of light and reflection. The seven prints depict Lichtenstein’s iconic Pop images behind illusionistic glass frames or layered under shards of reflective mirror. These barriers of shattered reflections and abstract shapes both form part of the composition and obscure the central images. Lichtenstein’s signature patterns and color blocks denote the optical qualities of reflected streaks and luminous glass. Gradations of light are conveyed through intricate compositions of Benday dots and regularized stripes, just as in printed materials. Reflections was produced at Tyler Graphics, NY, from 1989-1990, using various printing processes, including screenprint, lithography, embossing, relief reflections, and collage. Lichtenstein investigates perception of light and simulated reflections throughout his oeuvre – in his many Reflection paintings beginning in 1988, his Mirror series, and Water Lilies series in 1992.

Each of the seven Reflections prints references an iconic Lichtenstein image – the war comic, the blond beauty of the 1960s, the expressionist brushstroke, and the frames in his Mirrors and Entablature series. Reflections on Crash references a comic book war scene from the 1960s displayed beneath a printed frame with reflections on its surface. He used his pop palette of primary colors, but adds green and orange in the reflections for a wider tonal range. In addition to his fighter pilots, Reflections on Girl shows the stereotypical comic blond beauty of the 1960s. Here, the iconic girl’s face and stylized text bubbles are fragmented. Reflections on Minerva shows Wonder Woman superhero, which invokes the Roman goddess of wisdom, war and power, Minerva. Reflections are all layered on top of the comic images. He uses his printing method style of primary colors, outlines in black, Benday dots instead of shades of color.

Reflections on Brushstrokes parodies the value placed on this grand artistic gesture in art history. The brushstroke is a motif in many of Lichtenstein’s works that explores the irony of a printed brushstroke. The brushstroke, a gesture that holds great importance in Abstract Expressionism, is now disconnected from the artist’s hand and rendered meticulously by a printing machine, reducing it to a series of Benday dots and colored blocks. The brushstroke appears again and again, a focus on the irony of printed painted strokes. Here, Lichtenstein puts it beneath shattered shards of reflective mirror. About Reflections on Brushstrokes, Lichtenstein stated, “I like the idea of the brushstroke on (printed canvas), and then with reflections it is even better. That’s why I like Reflections on Brushstrokes. It shows all of the paint and it has the glass in front, and the canvas and brushstrokes, so it encompasses all that is art – more or less.” (Mary Lee Corlett, The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné 1948-1993, New York 1994, pp.40-41, 42, 121, 300, reproduced p.41)