Focus on Golf Ball and explore the History.
When Lichtenstein had his first solo show at the Leo Castelli Gallery in February 1962, it sold out before opening. Golf Ball was one of the works that Lichtenstein exhibited. Later, Lichtenstein included Golf Ball in Still Life with Goldfish Bowl, 1972, and Go for Baroque, 1979. The painting exemplifies the novel superimposition of abstraction and figuration. The work also represents abstraction as a result of elimination of three-dimensionality, chiaroscuro and a landscape context.
The use of black and white is regarded as dramatic, and although it may have been influenced by 1940s and 1950s works of Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, it is more likely a commentary on Mondrian's 1917 Composition in Black and White. Alternatively, it may have been a reference to another of Mondrian's pre-World War I black and white oval paintings, such as Pier and Ocean, 1915. This complementary source art was common of Lichtenstein's 1960s work on frequently advertised objects. Lichtenstein describes his sources as Mondrian Plus and Minus paintings.
World War I superimposition Willem de Kooning figuration Mondrian Robert Motherwell chiaroscuro Leo Castelli Gallery Franz Kline Leo Castelli