Focus on Girl with Ball and analyze the Background.
Girl with Ball was inspired by a 1961 advertisement for the Mount Airy Lodge in the Pocono Mountains. The ad, which started running in 1955, was widely published in the New York metropolitan area and elsewhere, including several prominent newspapers such as The New York Times and the Daily News. The advertisement was still running in newspapers more than twenty years after Lichtenstein produced the work.According to the Lichtenstein Foundation website, in autumn 1961, a fellow teacher at Rutgers University named Allan Kaprow made introductions between Lichtenstein and Leo Castelli Gallery director Ivan Karp. Lichtenstein showed Karp several paintings including Girl with Ball, which was the one that intrigued Karp. Karp agreed to represent Lichtenstein weeks later. After showing the painting to Andy Warhol, he sold it to architect Philip Johnson that November. The painting appeared in Newsweek's 1962 review of Lichtenstein's Castelli Gallery show. The work appeared in the April 3, 1963 "Pop! Goes the Easel" show at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston along with his Brattata (1962) and Head-Red and Yellow (1962).
Brattata Mount Airy Lodge The New York Times Newsweek Allan Kaprow Andy Warhol Daily News Rutgers University Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Ivan Karp Pocono Mountains New York metropolitan area Leo Castelli Philip Johnson