Edition of 250; plus 50 AP, 1 PPI, 1 PPII, 1 PPIII, 1 RTP, 3 GEL, 1 C, 30 SP

Created in 1994, Still Life with Red Jar belongs to the mature final decade of Roy Lichtenstein’s career, a period in which the artist revisited the great genres of art history through the unmistakable language of Pop. Here, the traditional still life is transformed into something crisp, graphic and distinctly modern.

The composition is deceptively simple: a red jar, fruit and tabletop forms arranged with clarity and balance. Yet, as with Lichtenstein’s finest works, apparent simplicity gives way to considerable sophistication. The familiar objects are rendered through bold black outlines, flat colour and Ben-Day dots, turning an intimate domestic subject into an image about image-making itself.

Lichtenstein had long been fascinated by the relationship between reality, representation and reproduction. In the 1960s, he famously drew upon comic books and commercial printing to challenge the boundaries between popular culture and fine art. Later in his career, he applied the same visual intelligence to art-historical subjects: landscapes, mirrors, interiors, nudes and still lifes. In Still Life with Red Jar, the result is both playful and highly considered.

The red jar anchors the composition, providing a central note of warmth and visual strength. Around it, the fruit and surrounding forms are reduced almost to signs, recognisable, elegant and deliberately stylised. One senses echoes of Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse and Léger, but filtered through the cool precision of twentieth-century print culture.

As a screenprint, the work also reflects Lichtenstein’s exceptional understanding of the medium. His prints were never simply reproductions of paintings; they were central to his artistic practice. The controlled surface, sharp contours and carefully calibrated colour fields make screenprinting especially suited to his visual language.

Still Life with Red Jar is a late work, but not a minor one. It shows Lichtenstein in full command of his style, returning to a classical subject with wit, discipline and assurance. The work is immediately recognisable, visually refined and intellectually rich, a compelling example of how Lichtenstein could take the ordinary and reveal within it the structures of modern seeing.