Little Big Painting

1965 · Painting

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Little Big Painting” now? Collection: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Not on view at present. Checked September 25, 2026.

Whitney Museum of American Art

New York, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 16 days ago
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the painting

Little Big Painting is a 1965 oil and Magna on canvas pop art painting by the American artist Roy Lichtenstein. It is part of the Brushstrokes series of artworks that include several paintings and sculptures. It is located at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. As with all of his Brushstrokes works, it is in part a satirical response to the gestural painting of abstract expressionism.

Wikipedia CC BY-SA

Details

Accession number: 66.2

In the catalog

Paintings Oil American painting Post-war art 20th century

Sources

Whitney Museum of American Art
Image: Whitney Museum of American Art — © the artist or rights holder

In the life of Roy Lichtenstein

The whole life

1963–1964
Leaves Rutgers and returns to New York
In September 1963 Lichtenstein took a leave of absence from Douglass College at Rutgers; in 1964 he moved back to New York to be at the centre of the art scene and resigned from Rutgers to concentrate on his painting.
1964
The first American to exhibit at the Tate Gallery
Lichtenstein became the first American to exhibit at the Tate Gallery in London, in the show “’54–’64: Painting and Sculpture of a Decade”.
1964
Life magazine asks: “Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?”
When Lichtenstein’s work was first exhibited, many critics challenged its originality and called it vulgar and empty; a Life magazine article of 1964 was headed “Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?”. The artist replied that the closer his work is to the original, the more threatening and critical its content.
1965
Divorce from Isabel
The brutal upstate winters, where Lichtenstein had been teaching since 1958, took a toll on him and his wife. They sold the family home in Highland Park, New Jersey, in 1963 and divorced in 1965.
1967
First museum retrospective in Pasadena
In 1967 the Pasadena Art Museum in California held Lichtenstein’s first museum retrospective.
1967
First solo exhibitions in Europe
In the same year, 1967, Lichtenstein’s first solo exhibition in Europe was held at museums in Amsterdam, London, Bern and Hannover.