Dots, Reframed, Roy Lichtenstein Gets His First New York Survey Since 1993
The Whitney opens Like New on Sunday with more than 130 works, and Gap is selling a capsule collection to match
Roy Lichtenstein was born in New York, and on Sunday the city gets a long look at what he did with it. The Whitney Museum of American Art opens Roy Lichtenstein: Like New to the public on October 11, a retrospective that Downtown Magazine says brings together more than 130 works made from the early 1940s through the 1990s.
It is the first New York retrospective of his work since 1993, according to the Whitney's exhibition page, which lists the run as October 11, 2026, through May 10, 2027, on the museum's fifth floor.
What Is in the Rooms
The works include drawings, sculptures, paintings, prints and film, plus four re-created murals, Downtown Magazine reports. A second show is already open on the third floor. Roy Lichtenstein: 1997 focuses on the work he made in the final year of his life and runs through June 1, 2027, the museum says.
Lichtenstein, who was drafted and served in the military from 1943 to 1945, later turned to postwar image culture. He took comic strips and advertisements, then resized, reframed and colored them with his signature dots. Downtown Magazine notes that he was a leading figure of 1960s Pop Art alongside Andy Warhol, though his work moved beyond it.
Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney's Alice Pratt Brown Director, said at the opening remarks that Lichtenstein had a "prescient" understanding of how images are passed around, manipulated, reframed, refiltered and reused, Downtown Magazine reports. It is an unusual claim to make about a painter who died in 1997. The museum's own text makes the same case, describing his art as strikingly prescient in an era of endlessly copied and reposted pictures.
The exhibition was organized by Meg Onli and the guest curator Alex Da Corte, an artist whose own work is also in the show. Onli said Lichtenstein credited the artist and professor Hoyt Sherman at Ohio State University as a key influence on how he saw the world. The show also includes artists who later appropriated Lichtenstein's work, most notably Richard Pettibone and Elaine Sturtevant.
The Gap Collection
Timed to the opening week, Gap is selling a limited collection with the Estate of Roy Lichtenstein and the Whitney. FashionUnited reports the 18-piece line applies the artist's visual language to Gap staples such as hoodies, sweatshirts, button-down shirts, T-shirts and accessories.
Gap's chief executive, Mark Breitbard, told FashionUnited that Lichtenstein's work felt like a natural fit because he could take something familiar and make people see it in a new way.
"The goal was to keep it simple and let the artwork do the talking, creating pieces that feel wearable, approachable and unmistakably Gap while giving people a new way to experience his work," Breitbard said.
Jack Sachs, the Whitney's director of retail and licensing, said the partnership brings the work to people who may not live near a major museum. "Lichtenstein will be exposed to millions who may not have the privilege of living close enough to visit major arts institutions," he told FashionUnited.
The Larger Season
FashionUnited notes that Lichtenstein was born in New York City in 1923, died in 1997 and produced more than 5,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and objects. He began with commercial advertising and comic strips and moved to landscapes, still lifes, figures and art history.
New York has other art on its calendar this autumn. Brooklyn Museum's manga show opened earlier this month, and Scott Kahn's moons at David Zwirner lit up a Chelsea gallery. Lichtenstein now joins them, with a show that asks how much a dot can carry.
