"A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth." -- John Singer Sargent

Sunday, July 1, 2018

Robert F. Kennedy


This 1968 – 1989 lithograph of Robert F. Kennedy, 1925-1968, by Roy Lichtenstein hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.
“After winning the California presidential primary, Robert (‘Bobby’) Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, ending one of the most interesting political careers in modern American history and further draping the legacy of the Kennedy family in mourning. The younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, who opposed the Johnson administration's Vietnam War policies and was markedly progressive, had served as the U.S. attorney general (1961-64) and as a senator from New York (1965-1968).

Roy Lichtenstein created this portrait for the cover of Time magazine's May 24, 1968, edition. His Pop art style and bright colors create a sense of energy that evokes the young presidential hopeful's personality. Kennedy told Lichtenstein that while he approved of the picture, ‘I don't have red spots all over my face.’ Shortly after Kennedy was shot, Time commissioned another cover from Lichtenstein to highlight the issue of gun control.” – National Portrait Gallery
 In Remembrance 2018

Time,   May 24, 1968 | Vol. 91 No. 21

1/2    R Lichtenstein   '89

This 1968 screenprint on acetate by Roy Lichtenstein belongs to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. It appeared on the cover of Time magazine on June 21, 1968

         “The Gun in America

The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in the spring of 1968 unleashed a heated debate over America's passion for personal firearms and the ease with which anyone could procure a rifle or pistol. By late June, Time magazine was reporting on this debate in its cover story, which focused on, among other things, the mounting cry for new curbs on citizens' rights to bear firearms. The story caught people's attention, and the magazine received countless pieces of mail from readers.

Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein created a vivid, riveting cover for the issue. He had long recognized the gun as an important element in American culture, and his image for Time was simply a variant of the pistol-gripping hand that he had produced on a felt banner several years earlier.” -- SAAM

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