Lichtenstein’s Mural Brought Back to Life

Ah, hindsight. Given a bit of it, Gallery on Greene Street might not have destroyed their 1983 Roy Lichtenstein mural. But alas they did, some weeks after Lichtenstein and his assistants painted it, to make way for another exhibition.

Roy Lichtenstein’s Greene Street Mural, 1983, installed at Leo Castelli Gallery, 142 Greene Street, New York, December 3, 1983–January 14, 1984
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein
Courtesy Castelli Gallery and Gagosian Gallery

The mural was a Lichtenstein-remix, if you will. An obviously brilliant mishmash of some of Lichtenstein’s most famous and celebrated paintings, the mural was hand painted by Lichtenstein, Leo Castelli, Lichtenstein’s wife Dorothy, two studio members, and Rob McKeever. Rob McKeever was one of Lichtenstein’s studio assistants also, but is notable for two reasons – one; he worked with Lichtenstein for 14 years (until Roy’s passing in 1997), and two; due to the fact that McKeever is currently the head archivist and photographer for the Gagosian Gallery.

Roy Lichtenstein in front of Greene Street Mural © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein
Courtesy Michael Abramson / Gagosian Gallery

Part of the Lichtenstein magic was his hand. His paintings, in all of their seemingly mechanised glory, were painted by hand. It seems almost unbelievable really when you look at all of the sure and steady black lines, but Lichtenstein had his method down to a science. When painting, he often worked on a specially-designed easel. The easel could be manoeuvred around to allow Lichtenstein to paint his lines and Ben-Day dots – it could spin a canvas 360 degrees, any which way and around in circles. But in the Gallery on Greene, Lichtenstein and his team worked their hand-painted magic in a slightly different way.

The mural was painted with the help of a massive projector. Like tracing, Lichtenstein projected an image that he had composed and designed onto the wall, and everyone painted over the shadowy image. The reproduction currently on display at the Gagosian Gallery is very much that: a reproduction. The new temporary Lichtenstein was painted by commercial sign painters.

Overseeing the painting of the new mural, and the show surrounding it, is Rob McKeever. He has been there every step of the way, ensuring that the colours were right and that the whole thing was done with Roy in mind. McKeever’s watchful eye has ensured that Roy Lichtenstein: Greene Street Mural is a tribute to the great Pop artist, and in the way that Lichtenstein would have wanted.

It really is a thrill, this exhibition. And it is a credit to the curator, because it is a unique and new idea in a world in which it is getting increasingly more difficult to bring genuinely and wholly new things into. And on a purely technical level, re-creating a mural that until some weeks ago only remained to exist in pictures, a blueprint, a few studies, and in the mind of Rob McKeever; Roy Lichtenstein: Greene Street Mural is a bit of a triumph.

Roy Lichtenstein: Greene Street Mural is on show at Gagosian Gallery in New York. It runs from September 10 through to October 17, at which point the mural will again be destroyed. You can find more information here: gagosian.com