Lichtenstein: A Retrospective

New Statesman“Once Lichtensteined, an image became something else altogether...” With rooms devoted to his conterfeits not only of anonymous cartoonists but Monet, Picasso, Matisse and Mondrian, his chameleon-like craft becomes abundantly clear. Critics might call him a copycat, but that seems unfair...

The Observer“Lichtenstein's paintings are just inherently likable...” How do these paintings feel to us these days, 50 years after the advent of pop art? Their vitality is evergreen, always exuberant, even in the long phases of cool art about art, but the mood runs all the way from pathos to comedy...

Financial Times“Cleverly curated show...” Lichtenstein’s range of jokey-serious popular references formed a telling commentary on a visual culture that was driven as much from Madison Avenue as from Hollywood’s graphic workshops...

Guardian“He bleeds the inner life dry.” Everything turns about style in Lichtenstein, and for some reason this saddens me. The cumulative effect of seeing so much of his work together is to inure me to his undoubted gifts. Before the end, my spirit had sunk so low I wanted to creep away...

Evening Standard“Great moments still punctuate the mediocrity...” The curators no doubt hoped that such revelations would come thick and fast in this far too vast show but on the whole it reinforces why we know those war and romance paintings so well: Lichtenstein’s pop genius burned brightest in the Sixties...

The Arts Desk“The show brings out the innovator in Lichtenstein...” You come out of the show feeling that Lichtenstein doesn’t get as much art historical credit as he should. The lesser-known works of the Modern series are startling for their originality and prescience...

The Telegraph“He makes you see an everyday object as a thing of beauty and complexity...” I came away with a new respect for the way Lichtenstein used the work of other artists as a means to analyse, explore and sometimes subvert the building blocks of art — illusion, perspective, line and colour...

The Independent“He understands mood, he knows how to refresh and modernise...” You find yourself wholly caught up in what he called “the pregnant moment” when a single image and an accompanying speech bubble tells it all. Profound or simply effective, Lichtenstein knew how to make a canvas leap out at you.