The British Museum has received 34 prints and drawings by American artist Roy Lichtenstein.
The art was donated to the museum by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, marking the centenary of the late artist’s birth in 1923.
The British Museum is one of three institutions selected to receive prints, alongside the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland and the Albertina in Vienna.
The prints cover the span of Lichtenstein’s working life, alongside seven rare pre-1960s drawings and pastels, and two pen studies from the 1970s.
The museum will now hold works including Storming the Castle (c. 1950), Still Life (1968), Water Lily (1993), and examples of his drawing like Machine (c. 1948) and Knight with Lady (c. 1951). Prior to the acquisition the museum held six works by the artist, including two postcards.
Mark Jones, Interim Director at the British Museum said the new works mean the museum “can give a more rounded and complete sense of Lichtenstein’s artistic progress.”
Jones added: “with our commitment to sharing our collection nationally and internationally, as well as online, I am hopeful that people across the globe will be able to share in the appreciation of these fine works.”
Dr Jack Cowart, Founding Executive Director of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation said the organisation has spent years tracking down and reacquiring artworks from private collections “so we could regift them to a museum collection. We can think of no better repository than the British Museum.”
“We hope that students, scholars, and the general public in London will benefit from this increased access to Roy’s notable works on paper.”
