Description
Artist's Studio "Foot Medication" depicts a room filled with artworks, including several that reference or re-create Roy Lichtenstein's previous work, such as the 1962 print Foot Medication reimagined as the monumental image at upper left. The artist often referenced his body of work, pop culture, and, as in this piece, art history. One of four Lichtenstein paintings that parody the European genre of studio interiors, this example takes inspiration from a work by modern French artist Henri Matisse that shows his canvas set casually around a room.
Accession Number
229363
Medium
Oil and Magna on canvas
Dimensions
243.8 × 325.1 cm (96 × 128 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of Edlis Neeson Collection
Background & Context
Background Story
"Artist's Studio "Foot Medication"" is one of Lichtenstein's most ambitious canvases from the 1970s, a monumental work nearly 2.5 meters high that parodies both the traditional artist's studio theme and the Abstract Expressionist claim to heroic originality. The composition is divided into multiple panels showing different views of a studio interior, each rendered in Lichtenstein's signature Ben-Day dots and bold black outlines derived from commercial printing. The title refers to a small detail in one panel—a box of foot medication visible among art supplies—transforming a banal pharmaceutical product into the nominal subject of a grand studio painting. This deliberate anti-climax is characteristic of Pop Art's critique of High Modernism: where Courbet and Picasso had filled their studio self-portraits with meaningful props, Lichtenstein introduces a commodity with no aesthetic pretensions. The scale is important; by painting at Abstract Expressionist dimensions while maintaining the flatness of advertising illustration, Lichtenstein exposed the conventions of both traditions. The multiple-panel format recalls comic-strip narrative sequences and medieval altarpieces simultaneously, creating a temporal dimension unusual in static painting. Art historians have linked this work to Lichtenstein's broader investigation of art-historical clichés in the 1970s, when he produced series parodying Monet's Haystacks, Picasso's Cubism, and Abstract Expressionist brushwork itself. The studio theme also carries personal resonance: Lichtenstein maintained a rigorous daily work schedule in his Southampton studio, and the painting may contain sly references to his own working environment, including the view from his windows and the objects on his desk.
Cultural Impact
This monumental studio parody dismantled Abstract Expressionist heroism by replacing meaningful props with foot medication, using comic-strip scale to critique art-historical self-importance.
Why It Matters
It matters because Lichtenstein painted his studio as a comic strip—and then hid a box of foot powder in it, asking whether art was really any different than drugstore shelves.
