The Knight (Self-Portrait)

c. 1951 · Painting

May one see it?

Not receiving at present

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

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

Checked: 2 days ago
In this state since: Aug 19, 2026
Source: The museum's own collection data

On the map Museum page

About the painting

Lichtenstein’s painting is an irreverent rendering of a medieval knight adorned in chainmail and brandishing a weapon and shield. As a goofy-grinned self-portrait, it includes an element of humorous self-deprecation as well. The artist described his works from this period as “taking the kind of stodgy pictures you see in history textbooks and redoing them in a modern-art way.”

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Particulars

Accession number: 2014.5

In the catalog

Paintings Oil American painting Post-war art 20th century America

Sources

The Cleveland Museum of Art: the museum's own open data · fetched 8 days ago
Image: The Cleveland Museum of Art — © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Meanwhile, in the life of Roy Lichtenstein

The whole life

1949
Master’s degree and teaching in Ohio
Lichtenstein entered the graduate programme at Ohio State University and was hired as an art instructor, a post he held on and off for about ten years; in 1949 he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree.
1 June 1949
Married: Isabel Sarisky
1951 · Workplace
Florida
1951
First solo exhibition at the Carlebach Gallery
In 1951 Lichtenstein had his first solo exhibition at the Carlebach Gallery in New York.
1951–1957
Six years in Cleveland and odd jobs
In 1951 Lichtenstein moved to Cleveland, where he stayed for six years, travelling back to New York often. Between periods of painting he took jobs as varied as draftsman and window decorator, and his work fluctuated between Cubism and Expressionism.