Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997) Sweet Dreams, Baby!

1965, pencil signed and numbered 149/200 (there were also 50 in Roman numerals and approximately 5 artist’s proofs), with full margins, Original Editions, New York, publisher. Color screenprint on heavy, smooth white wove paper.
image: 35 9/16 x 25 9/16 in. (90.3 x 64.9cm)
sheet: 37 5/8 x 27 5/8 in. (95.6 x 70.2cm)

In her forward to the The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné, Ruth Fine writes, “Lichtenstein has said he thinks of his 11 Pop Artists prints as his first “true” Pop prints, the ones that were really done as prints.” In the present work, contributed to the third volume of 11 Pop Artists, Lichtenstein’s primary subject and emphasis is text, rather than pictorial narrative of who delivers the punch and why. Here, the words ‘POW!’ and ‘Sweet Dreams, Baby’ exemplify perfectly what Fine describes as the artist’s juxtaposition of “a verbal-visual language, both as a cartoon-bubble conversation device and to suggest sound, referred to as ‘audioscription’ by the artist (“Wham,” “Crak,” “Pow”), presenting the issue of language and its formal properties in a very different context than it has been used.”

M.L. Corlett, The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné 1948-1997, Introduction by Ruth Fine, New York, 2002 (pp. 21-22).