The donation to the two neighboring museums establishes Dallas as center for study on the 20th century artist.
DALLAS, Texas (October 27, 2023) – The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) and the Nasher Sculpture Center announce a joint acquisition of over 50 objects by Roy Lichtenstein, offering a survey of the artist’s sculptural practice through a collection of sculptures, drawings, studies, and prototypes spanning his 50-year career. The gift was made by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, which, on the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth today, published the Roy Lichtenstein Catalogue Raisonné, a publicly accessible online resource detailing over 5,500 works.
The gift to the DMA and the Nasher is the largest joint gift made by the Lichtenstein Foundation to date. Strategically curated, the acquisition includes 16 sculptures, 15 drawings, 14 maquettes, two collages, two tracings, one prototype, and three sets of studio tools and test objects. Together the works provide insights into the artist’s sculptural process, documenting the painstaking creation of large-scale sculptures through drawings, models, and maquettes, including a particularly expansive representation of the Brushstroke sculptures with related materials. The selection also highlights numerous themes the artist pursued in both two and three dimensions throughout his career, including ceramics, glasses and mirrors, modern sculpture and design, and the nature of painting. It is in this group of works that viewers can follow Lichtenstein from drawing to foamcore maquette to sculpture in numerous examples, but most clearly in the examples pertaining to the painted cherry wood works Brushstroke I, Brushstroke IV, and Brushstroke V (all 1986). As the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation notes, “the two museums will share this study and display collection of the artist’s process and production, which is the only such concentration in the United States.”
“It is thrilling for Dallas that the first joint acquisition of the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Museum of Art should be such a marvelous group of works by Roy Lichtenstein, one of the most significant artists of the 20th century,” says Nasher director Jeremy Strick. “In his sculpture as in his painting, Lichtenstein transformed our understanding of the relationship between fine art and popular culture, while also turning his visual language to the critical examination and celebration of key modernist tropes. This extraordinarily generous gift of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation will transform Dallas into an international center for the study of Lichtenstein sculpture.”
“Today is a special day for the Lichtenstein legacy and the city of Dallas. We are honored to join the world in celebrating Roy Lichtenstein on the 100th anniversary of his birth, by announcing such an exciting joint addition to our collections,” said the DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director Dr. Agustin Arteaga. “We are humbled to have been chosen by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation to steward these magnificent works for the benefit of the people of Dallas and the world. This is not only a recognition for the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center, but to the City of Dallas that continues to shine as a national and global destination for arts and culture.”
Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) was a leading figure in twentieth-century American art and a pioneer of the Pop Art movement. His profoundly innovative career employs parody and imitation, borrowing from the signs and symbols of mass culture while mining images from media, advertisements, and commercial illustrations. He developed a singular Pop idiom that playfully challenged the boundaries of “high art” and “low culture.” Rendered in a striking, high-impact style achieved through the use of his signature Ben-Day dot patterning, Lichtenstein’s work challenged notions of visual perception, compositional illusion, and modes of representation. An antidote to the spontaneity of the artist’s hand championed by Abstract Expressionist predecessors, his disciplined and controlled use of line imitated the mechanical reproduction and cool artifice of mass-produced imagery.
In this partnership, the DMA and the Nasher will share ownership of the newly acquired collection. The selection of objects was the result of almost four years of collaborative discussions among the museums and the Lichtenstein Foundation, which are now inaugurating it as a core program of the Lichtenstein centenary. Other museums receiving works from the Foundation include The Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The Roy Lichtenstein Catalogue Raisonné can be accessed here:
About the Nasher Sculpture Center:
Located in the heart of the Dallas Arts District, the Nasher Sculpture Center is home to the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, one of the finest collections of modern and contemporary sculpture in the world, featuring more than 500 masterpieces by Brancusi, Calder, de Kooning, di Suvero, Giacometti, Basquiat, Hepworth, LeWitt, Matisse, Miró, Moore, Picasso, Rodin, Serra, and Shapiro, among others. The Nasher Sculpture Center is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, $5 for students, and free for children 12 and under and members, and includes access to special exhibitions.
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About the Dallas Museum of Art:
Established in 1903, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is among the 10 largest art museums in the country. With a free general admission policy and community outreach efforts, the DMA is distinguished by its commitment to research, innovation, and public engagement. At the heart of the Museum and its programs is its global collection, which encompasses 25,000 works and spans 5,000 years of history, representing a full range of world cultures. Located in the nation’s largest arts district, the Museum acts as a catalyst for community creativity, engaging people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse spectrum of programming, from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary events, and dramatic and dance presentations. The DMA is an Open Access institution, allowing all works believed to be in the public domain to be freely available for downloading, sharing, repurposing, and remixing without restriction. For more information, visit
Free General Admission to the Dallas Museum of Art is made possible with generous support from the Robert Gerard Pollock Foundation. The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA Members and donors, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts and the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture.
Thank yu,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
