Sotheby's Reflections on Pop: Works from the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein October 7

This October, Sotheby’s will present an offering of works emerging from the personal collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein, showcasing five decades of artistic output from the Pop art icon. Bringing together paintings, drawings, collages, sculptures, ephemera, prints, and editions, the group offers a broad exploration of Lichtenstein’s practice. This particular selection gives an in-depth look into Lichtenstein’s process and the development of his ideas through various media, showcasing the full range of the artist’s creative process. Taken together, the works capture the retrospective spirit of the Collection and reflect both the range and consistency of Lichtenstein’s vision across multiple mediums and throughout his oeuvre. 

Titled Reflections on Pop: Works from the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein, the sale comes at a time when fans of Lichtenstein’s work look ahead to the Whitney Museum of American Art’s highly anticipated retrospective, Roy Lichtenstein: Like New, opening to the public just days following the auctions in October. 

With estimates ranging from just $500 up to $1.5 million, the sale offers an opportunity for both established and new collectors to explore and engage with the artist’s body of work and creative development. In a moment when Lichtenstein’s imagery is more in the public eye than ever, Sotheby’s sales give collectors a chance to participate in taking home a piece of his enduring legacy. Reflections on Pop follows Sotheby’s successful auctions of works from the Collection in 2024 and 2025, which were 99% sold. 

Works from the Collection will be offered in two dedicated sales: a 23-lot live auction on 7 October, and an online auction featuring more than 120 works open for bidding from 25 September - 9 October. 

 Collection Highlights 

Interior with Painting of Nude (Study) cut painted paper, cut printed paper, tape, marker, and graphite on paper Executed in 1997 Estimate $1-1.5 million 

& Interior with Painting of Nude (Study) colored pencil and graphite on paper Executed in 1997 Estimate $100,000-150,000 

Executed in 1997, Interior with Painting of Nude (Study) belongs to Roy Lichtenstein's celebrated late Nudes and Interiors series, one of the final and most sophisticated bodies of work created during the last decade of his career. The collage and a drawing of the same name, provide a rare window into the evolution of a composition across different media. Drawings were central to Lichtenstein's work and frequently served as the starting point for paintings, sculptures, and prints. The accompanying drawing captures the artist's formulation of the composition before he expanded it into the complex collage.  Later in his career, Lichtenstein expanded his color palette and removed the black outline which characterized many of his Pop works over the decades. This work showcases a new direction Lichtenstein investigated prior to his passing. The collage presents a tactile counterpoint to Lichtenstein’s signature hard-edge aesthetic, with hand-cut edges, graphite marks, seams, and layered textures that reveal the artist’s hand. Unlike the mechanical appearance of Lichtenstein's final works, the collage exposes the highly constructed nature of his imagery, allowing viewers to witness the artist actively building the composition element by element. The subject reflects the artist's ongoing exploration of the dialogue between interior space, art history, and the female figure - themes that occupied him throughout the 1990s and culminated in the acclaimed Nudes and Interiors series. 

Blue Nude (Study) colored pencil and graphite on Denril Executed in 1995 Estimate $300,000-400,000 

Created in 1995, Blue Nude (Study) directly relates to Blue Nude, one of the most celebrated works from Lichtenstein’s late Nudes series and formerly in the collection of designer Gianni Versace before it sold at Sotheby’s in May 2005. This study offers a rare glimpse into Lichtenstein’s creative process during the final years of his career. Far from simply serving as a preparatory exercise, the drawing allows viewers to trace the evolution and experimentation of the composition before its realization on canvas. Filled with expressive mark-making, the workhighlights the immediacy and intimacy of the artist’s hand in striking contrast to his polished, finished paintings. 

Reflections on “Nancy” (Study) colored pencil and graphite on paper Executed in 1989 Estimate $150,000-200,000 This drawing highlights Lichtenstein’s lifelong engagement with comics, as he revisits “Nancy”, one of the most iconic American comic-strip characters. As a study for his celebrated Reflections series, the work exemplifies Lichtenstein's enduring interest in collapsing traditional distinctions between mass media and high culture and revisiting his canon to find new ways of distilling his pop sensibility. 

Entablature acrylic, sand and graphite on canvas Executed in 1976 Estimate $700,000 - $1,000,000 

Executed between 1971 and 1976, Lichtenstein’s Entablatures series marked a dramatic shift in the artist’s work. 

Moving away from comic book panels and consumer advertising, he turned his attention to architecture - specifically motifs found on American neoclassical facades. Inspired by both Greek and Roman sources and the early 20th-century Beaux-Arts revival as seen in buildings throughout Manhattan, Lichtenstein photographed local architecture and translated its classical entablatures into bold, graphic abstractions. Polished and graphic yet austere and architectural, the work becomes a meditation on the relationship between history and modernity, ornament and structure, and the handmade and mechanically produced. One of just 30 works on canvas within this series, sand from the Southampton beaches near the artist’s Long Island studio reveals traces of the artist’s hand. Works from the Entablatures series reside in prominent museum collections such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Broad, Los Angeles; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

 

Glass II (Prototype) painted wood Executed in 1976 Estimate $300,000-500,000 

Glass II (Prototype) represents a pivotal moment when Lichtenstein translated the visual language of Pop Art from two-dimensional images into three-dimensional form. As the prototype for the celebrated bronze sculpture Glass II, Glass II (Prototype) reveals how he developed and refined the formal strategies that would ultimately be realized in the finished sculptural edition. Rather than sculpting a realistic glass, Lichtenstein reconstructs the graphic devices used to depict one, including contour lines, reflections, shadows, and stripes to create a drawing in space.

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