The Whitney Is Taking Over Roy Lichtenstein’s Greenwich Village Studio

They'll use it for their Independent Study Program

Roy Lichtenstein
Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein in his New York studio in 1968.
Jack Mitchell/Getty Images

What happens to an artist’s work space when that artist is gone? Some spaces, like the homes and studios of Georgia O’Keeffe and Frank Lloyd Wright, have become museums unto themselves, a place where fans of the artist’s work can go to learn more about them and make a kind of pilgrimage. Others have wrestled with a more uncertain future, and have fallen into disrepair or faced the prospect of demolition.

Roy Lichtenstein was one of the defining figures of the Pop Art movement. Much of his late-career work came about via his studio in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, which he occupied for the last nine years of his life. Though Lichtenstein died in 1997, his studio has remained intact; his widow Dorothy Lichtenstein continues to live there, and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation has kept his archives in order.

Now, as Hyperallergic reports, Lichtenstein’s studio is taking on a new purpose — and it’s one that will see it maintain its status as a place for artists to create new work. Dorothy Lichtenstein donated the studio to The Whitney, which will use it for its Independent Study Program.

The aforementioned program has been around since 1968, but has never had a dedicated space. Once a renovation of Lichtenstein’s studio has taken place, however, that’s all about to change.

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