Upcoming sale: "Reflections on Pop: Works from the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein" Sotheby's New York
- Sep 23, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 24, 2025
26 September 2025
"Reflections on Pop" showcases four decades of Roy Lichtenstein’s personal collection, revealing how he redefined Pop Art through iconic imagery, art-historical dialogues, and the theme of reflection.
Here is our curated selection.
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Sweet Dreams, Baby!, from the 11 Pop Artists, Volume III portfolio, 1965
screenprint in colors on heavy, smooth wove paper
image: 90.5 by 65 cm.
sheet: 95.6 by 70.1 cm.
ESTIMATE: 80,000 – 120,000 USD
[Lichtenstein] conveyed the notion that all art is a series of reflections and illusions
Diane Waldman, “Reflections,” in Exh. Cat., Rome Chiostro del Bramante (and travelling),Roy Lichtenstein, Reflections, 1990-1001, p. 47 , Sotheby's
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Reflections: Wimpy I, 1988
signed and dated '88 (on the reverse)
acrylic, oil and graphite on canvas
81.3 by 101.6 cm.
ESTIMATE: 1,000,000 - 1,500,000 USD
I like to make very concrete symbols for ephemeral things. Reflections, for example.
Roy Lichtenstein quoted in “An interview with Roy Lichtenstein,” in Exh. Cat., New York, Whitney Museum of American Art,Roy Lichtenstein: Graphic Work: 1970-1980, 1981, n.p., Sotheby's
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Galatea, conceived in 1989, cast in 1990
inscribed with the artist's signature, number 1/6 and date '90 (on the base)
painted and patinated bronze
228.6 by 78.7 by 48.3 cm.
ESTIMATE: 800,000 - 1,200,000 USD
... Galatea is a late incarnation of the ancient nymph that the great art historian Aby Warburg traced, as a recurrent spirit, throughout “the afterlife of antiquity”... she is also assembled from bits and pieces of received art styles and cartoon signs. On the one hand, Galatea is brought to life by her Pygmalion, Lichtenstein inspired by Picasso; on the other hand, no artist is more alien than Lichtenstein to this classical myth about the immediacy of expression and the identity of art object and love object.
Hal Foster, “Pop Pygmallion,” in: Graham Bader ed., Roy Lichtenstein, Cambridge 2009, p. 160
Sotheby's Lot Essay
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Rain Forest (Study), 1991
cut printed paper, cut painted paper, sponged acrylic, marker and graphite on paperboard
image: 65.1 by 52.7 cm.
paperboard: 76.2 by 57.8 cm.
ESTIMATE: 500,000 - 700,000 USD
Lichtenstein rendered a fluid landscape into a static one in very much the same manner in which Seurat stylized nature. He abstracted nature’s forms into his own construct, using a series of dots, lines, shapes, and colors to transcribe the image of a landscape onto the canvas. What we are offered, then, is a series of conventions for landscape with which we can amuse ourselves, but which we come to recognize as the artist’s way of telling us that the image is not what it appears to be.
Diane Waldman, Roy Lichtenstein, New York 1993, p. 137
Sotheby's Lot Essay
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