Crying Girl

Roy Lichtenstein, a pioneer of the Pop art movement, drew upon the content and aesthetics of 1950s comic strips for his iconic Crying Girl prints. Exploring different portrayals of women in distress, Lichtenstein created two versions of Crying Girl, a lithograph in 1963 and an enamel on steel multiple the following year. The women, both blonde and wearing red lipstick, avert their gazes as tears well up in their eyes. Although Lichtenstein often used speech bubbles in his compositions, the Crying Girls are devoid of any text, allowing viewers to come to their own conclusions as to the cause of the women’s sorrows. Though celebrated today, Crying Girl was controversial when first released for its simple, cartoonish style. “I brought it back to Yale and I was attacked unmercifully,” said the photorealistic painter Chuck Close, recalling the time he purchased a 1963 Crying Girl for $10 from Leo Castelli Gallery and showed it to his MFA classmates. Though it’s commercial style was …