Whaam!
Encyclopedia
Whaam! by pop artist
Roy Lichtenstein
. It is widely regarded as one of his finest and notable works. It follows the comic strip-based themes of some of his past paintings.
The painting, a diptych
, is large in scale, measuring 1.7 x 4.0 m (5 ft 7 in x 13 ft 4 in).
, Whaam! adapted a comic-book panel by artist Russ Heath
from a 1962 issue of DC Comics
' All-American Men of War. The painting depicts a fighter aircraft the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star firing a rocket into an enemy plane, with a red-and-yellow explosion. The cartoon style is heightened by the use of the onomatopoeic lettering "Whaam!" and the yellow-boxed caption with black lettering, "I pressed the fire control... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky..."
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
. It is widely regarded as one of his finest and notable works. It follows the comic strip-based themes of some of his past paintings.
The painting, a diptych
Diptych
A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...
, is large in scale, measuring 1.7 x 4.0 m (5 ft 7 in x 13 ft 4 in).
Information
One of the earliest known examples of pop artPop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
, Whaam! adapted a comic-book panel by artist Russ Heath
Russ Heath
Russell Heath, Jr. is an American artist best known for his comic book work — particularly his DC Comics war stories for several decades and his 1960s art for Playboy magazine's Little Annie Fanny featurettes — and for his commercial art, two pieces of which, depicting Roman and...
from a 1962 issue of DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
' All-American Men of War. The painting depicts a fighter aircraft the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star firing a rocket into an enemy plane, with a red-and-yellow explosion. The cartoon style is heightened by the use of the onomatopoeic lettering "Whaam!" and the yellow-boxed caption with black lettering, "I pressed the fire control... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky..."