Vertical Apple
1983
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color woodcut on handmade Iwano Kizuki Hosho paper
Dimensions
image: 74.3 x 67.3 cm (29 1/4 x 26 1/2 in.) sheet (irregular): 94.3 x 82.6 cm (37 1/8 x 32 1/2 in.) framed: 104.9 x 93.5 x 4.4 cm (41 5/16 x 36 13/16 x 1 3/4 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein
Accession Number
1996.56.117
Art Historical Context
**Vertical Apple** (1983) by Roystein captures the artist's playful Pop Art sensibility in a striking color woodcut on luxurious handmade Iwano Kizuki Hosho paper, a traditional Japanese sheet prized for its texture and ink absorption. Measuring nearly 74 x 67 cm in its image area, this print transforms a simple apple—elongated vertically—into a, graphic icon. Lichtenstein, a leading figure of the Pop Art movement from the 1960s onward, often drew from comic books and advertising, using flat colors, thick outlines, and simulated Ben-Day dots to elevate consumer culture. Created late in Lichte...
About the Artist
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was born on October 27, 1923, in New York City to Milton Lichtenstein, a real estate broker, and Beatrice Werner Lichtenstein, a homemaker with musical training, in an upper-middle-class German-Jewish family. Growing up on the Upper West Side, he displayed early artistic talent, sketching jazz musicians and visiting museums like the Museum of Modern Art. In 1939, he studied painti...