Roy Lichtenstein: Like New at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Roy Lichtenstein: Like New fills the fifth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art from October 11, 2026, through May 10, 2027. It is the first New York retrospective of the artist since 1993.

Lichtenstein (1923–1997) was one of the defining figures of Pop art. When his early-1960s paintings first appeared, they startled both the art world and the wider public. He took images from comic books and newspapers, reworked and refined the compositions, then enlarged and transferred them to canvas. Bold black outlines, flat bright color and fields of dots echo commercial printing, yet every surface is painted by hand. That tension between the mechanical look and the human touch challenged assumptions about what a painting could be. He spent most of his life in New York and Southampton and kept changing his practice until his death at 73.

The title comes from a 1962 work. The show brings together many of his best-known paintings with lesser-known pieces and four re-created murals. Organized around his interest in perception, it follows six decades of work across painting, drawing, sculpture, film and prints.

The curatorial argument is aimed squarely at the present. Images today are generated, copied, altered, filtered and reposted endlessly, and Lichtenstein understood early that an image is never fixed: it travels through the world and comes back changed, made "like new" with each pass.

The exhibition is organized by Meg Onli, the Whitney's Nancy and Fred Poses Curator, and guest curator Alex Da Corte, with Nakai Falcón and David Crane. A separate Da Corte show, Hot Dog With Ketchup, also runs through May 10, 2027.

Related programs include Member Mornings on October 17, the Pop Party on the evening of October 28, and a Walter Annenberg Lecture by Da Corte on October 29 at 6:30 pm. The museum shop carries a catalogue designed by Irma Boom and an 18-piece Gap collection of clothing and accessories drawn from Lichtenstein's imagery.