Roy Lichtenstein's Painting "Ohhh... Alright..."

In November 2010, 1964 Lichtenstein painting “Ohhh Alright” was sold for $42.6 million dollars, at christies New York. Lichtenstein would himself have found this chocking as he used to say who pays so much for what he called “used Canvas”. “Ohhh...Alright…” is derived from the June 1963 edition of Secret Hearts #88 by Arleigh Publishing Corp,. (now part of D.C. Comics,. one of the many work created by After 1963, Lichtenstein's After 1963 using comics images of women often distressed and stylish in appearance, -painted in the 3 primary colours. based women "...look hard, crisp, brittle, and uniformly modish in appearance, as if they all came out of the same pot of makeup."

This particular example is iconic and one of several that are cropped so closely that the hair flows beyond the edges of the canvas. They are often canvas. featuring ladies in distress. This The image portray an iconic image, anxious a beautiful, fraught woman with a furrowed uneven brow grasps grabbing the telephone in in both hands as she says “Ohhh…Alright…” What I like about it is the way she's holding the phone," says National Gallery curator Harry Cooper. "She's caressing the phone, and I think in a way she would rather have a relationship with the receiver than with whoever is on the other end of the line. (Stamburg 2012).

It was painted at the apex of Lichtenstein's Lichtenstein painted using, cropped and magnified dots of the original comic image. One might think that each dot was hand painted but the technique he applies involves the use of a variety of stencils use of enlarged dots, cropping and magnification of the original source. Lichtenstein didn't paint each and every dot by hand. Instead, he used various kinds of stencils with perforated dot patterns.With such precision, he transformed commercial images into art.

Ohhh…Alright...is suggestive, sensual and possibly reflective of the view of women at the time. She looks vulnerable, almost tearful but at the same time composed, and in control of her emotions. He'd brush his paint across the top of the stencil, and the colors dropped through, as perfect circles. In doing so, he was elevating commercial images from comics, and ads into art.

An image, with its precision and simplicity evokes emotions and fire the imagination. Abstracts artists would have possibly founded it upsetting as The abstracts artists were possibly upsets as they saw their whole world of anguish vanish with this work of irony and witty yet beautifully executed. The use of comics appealed to Lichtenstein although he was not a fan and he could never go back to the previous form of art of his early career. However the influence of Picasso was highly evident in his work so as Matisse and Monet.

His approach to work was joyful and playful, and by 1964 he was internationally known artist although there was still great controversy about pop art. He treated his work more as marks than a subject and viewed it upside down and reflected in mirrors, almost to eliminate any excess or doubling of. He thrived on contradiction and transformed his original sources of inspiration. He believed that the position of lines is important rather than the character of it. Roy Lichtenstein left it up to the viewers to decide what has just transpired in his 1964 painting of a tense phone call titled “Ohhh... Alright ...”