With abundant reference to his most seminal bodies of work as well as the history of Modernism, Bedroom at Arles (Study) from 1992 represents a pivotal moment in Roy Lichtenstein’s career-long investigation of the art and artifice of twentieth-century society. Meticulously composed and exquisitely rendered, the present collage predates a larger painting of the same subject, Bedroom at Arles, which resides in the highly esteemed Robert and Jane Meyerhoff collects ion. Lichtenstein’s work pays homage to Vincent van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles from 1889, held in the Vincent van Gogh Museum, which is undoubtedly one of the most iconic and recognizable paragons of art history. In his rendition, Lichtenstein masterfully fuses references to a diverse range of artists and mediums, deconstructing the arbitrary boundaries between twentieth-century consumer culture and Modernism and offering a new lens into the semiotic systems that construct our reality. Bedroom at Arles and its present study exhibit an impeccable example of Lichtenstein’s ability to simultaneously engage with and subvert the tenets and tropes of twentieth-century Modernism, while weaving in his pioneering Pop Art aesthetic.

Bedroom at Arles and its collage study are situated within a limited suite of Interiors, a series Lichtenstein produced between 1991 and 1993 in which he contends with the commercialization and banality of domestic life publicized in contemporary home furnishing advertisements. Amongst the Interiors, the Bedroom at Arles works are singular in their art historical import. In others from the series, Lichtenstein embeds art historical references through small vignettes in the composition – for example, positioning an Yves Klein sponge on a side table, an Andy Warhol flower print on the wall, an Alexander Calder mobile in a bedroom suite, or a Claude Monet waterlilies painting framed above a dresser. Uniquely, in Bedroom at Arles (Study), Lichtenstein completely reinterprets an iconic Modern painting through the lens of Pop Art. In his impressively detailed collage, Lichtenstein incorporates emblematic components of his oeuvre – such as Ben Day dots, hard-edge lines, still life vignettes, and reflective mirrors – into the compositional program of one of the most recognizable works of art from the master of twentieth-century Post-Impressionism, Vincent van Gogh.

The Interiors were instantly recognized for their importance as a culminating project that synthesized some of Lichtenstein’s most profound and recognizable periods. As The New York t.mes s critic Roberta Smith noted upon the first public exhibition of the Interiors in February 1992, Lichtenstein had “resoundingly affirmed” his “nearly inexhaustible talent for putting his best-known visual strategies to fresh uses” Roberta Smith, “Inviting (if Fanciful Rooms from the View of Roy Lichtenstein,” The New York t.mes s, Friday February 7, 1992, p. 74. For almost every monumental Interior painting – some of which extend over 10-feet by 13-feet, Lichtenstein first created a preparatory collage. Using a variety of materials, including tape and paper, Lichtenstein developed the original composition which he would enlarge into a painting in a proportion of about one to four. Through the initial collages, Lichtenstein developed the compositional schema and theoretical challenges of the work – playing with perspective and art historical references. Then, by enlarging the composition beyond human scale, the artist confronts the viewer’s conception of real life and artifice.

Lichtenstein found inspiration for his Bedroom at Arles not directly from van Gogh’s painting, but rather a consumer reproduction on the cover of a 1993 calendar published by Graphique de France. Lichtenstein’s adaptation of van Gogh’s work responds to the ways in which the twentieth-century public interacts with art history through consumer products. Diane Waldman, former director of the Guggenheim and curator of Lichtenstein’s 1993 retrospective, explains:

In Bedroom at Arles (Study), Lichtenstein maintains the well-known compositional organization of the nineteenth-century masterpiece, but imaginatively reinvents the work as an enrapturing twentieth-century scene. Lichtenstein includes the twin bed, set of chairs, wash table, and wall hangings, but uses saturated color, his signature patterning, and references to Modern furniture advertisements to transport the viewer into a cartoon-like reality. The artist replaces van Gogh’s French farmhouse chairs with a bright yellow set recalling the sleek style of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s iconic MR Side Chair design, exchanges the rusticated wash table with a fashionable angular piece, and reimagines the draping towel and wrinkled shirts hanging on hooks as corporate white button-downs and a clean, terrycloth towel.

Interspersed throughout the composition are hints of central themes in Lichtenstein’s oeuvre. His signature motif, Ben Day dots, which allude to mass-produced newspaper images, appear throughout – even seeping into the paintings above the bed. Lichtenstein whimsically dissolves van Gogh’s self-portrait into a collects ion of dots, leaving the artist only recognizable by his fiery red hair and beard. Lichtenstein also incorporates the still lifes he has made since the 1960s – positioning a small pitcher and vase on the wash table in the corner of the room. Similar to Matisse's The Red Studio (1911), Lichtenstein creates a wonderfully captivating and beautiful space. He even references his fantastic mirror series, applying a set of diagonal slashes to signify the reflection on the wall. The artist’s hard-edge black outlines along the space’s borders, Ben Day dots, taut diagonal lines, and rippling wood-grain designs simultaneously solidify and dissolve the beguiling room before the viewer’s eyes, reviving the scene as a space of imagination.

Distorted in their cartoonish impracticality and yet oddly familiar, the Interiors series explores larger questions of the art and artifice of our everyday reality. Waldman writes:

First compelled by questions of style and taste in the domestic interior at the beginning of his career, as exhibited in Bathroom from 1961, in the collects ion of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Lichtenstein returned to subject thirty years later as a culminating project. The Interiors enabled him to revisit pivotal investigations from the preceding decades, fusing them into masterworks of his career. The suite is widely recognized for its preeminence within Lichtenstein’s oeuvre and the Pop Art movement – today, works from the Interiors, including Bedroom at Arles, are found in major museum and renowned private collects ions around the world. Beautifully rendered and thoughtfully engaged with the history of Modernism, Bedroom at Arles (Study) must be considered amongst Lichtenstein’s most contemplative, dynamic, and works.