Created in 1963, Roy Lichtenstein’s Crying Girl presents the viewer with a distinctly Pop Art display of female inner-suffering. Drawing from an endless array of inspiration from comic-book imagery, Lichtenstein depicts a closely cropped image of a cartoon woman’s face. She holds her perfectly manicured fingers to her bold red lips. Tears well from her eyes as she looks to the right, suggesting a whirlwind of inner turmoil. Her bright yellow hair flows behind her, suggesting she is running away, outlined by a variety of thick black lines. She may be crying, but she remains flawless, emphasised through the mechanical ben-day dots. However, the tight cropping and lack of dialogue within the print adds an air of mystery and suspense, adding extreme tension about the unknown.
Through the appropriation of comic book imagery, specifically from the comic Secret Hearts, which was published and circulated in the 1950s and 1960s, Lichtenstein cleverly plays on tropes of parody and satire, removing the boundaries between ‘high’ art and the ‘low art’ of popular culture.