Torpedo...Los!
| Torpedo...Los! | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Roy Lichtenstein |
| Year | 1963 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Movement | Pop art |
| Dimensions | 173.4 cm × 204 cm (68.3 in × 80 in) |
| Location | Private collection |
Torpedo...Los! (sometimes Torpedo...LOS!) is a 1963 pop art oil on canvas painting by Roy Lichtenstein. When it was last sold in 1989, The New York Times described the work as "a comic-strip image of sea warfare". It formerly held the record for the highest auction price for a Lichtenstein work. Its 1989 sale helped finance the construction of the current home of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 1991.
Like many of Lichtenstein's works its title comes from the speech balloon in the painting. The work was included in Lichtenstein's second solo exhibition. The source of the image is a comic book from DC Comics. Lichtenstein has made significant alterations to the original image to change the focus and perspective in addition to significant alteration of the narrative element of the work. The work plays on the background-foreground relationship and the theme of vision that appears in many of Lichtenstein's works.
The source of the image is "Battle of the Ghost Ships?" in DC Comics' Our Fighting Forces (October 1962), although the content of the speech balloon is different (this is edition number 72 according to some sources and 71 (a) according to others). According to the Lichtenstein Foundation website, Torpedo...Los! was part of Lichtenstein's second solo exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery of September 28 – October 24, 1963, that included Drowning Girl, Baseball Manager, In the Car, Conversation, and Whaam!. Marketing materials for the show included the lithograph artwork, Crak!.
On November 7, 1989, Torpedo...Los! sold at Christie's for $5.5 million (US$10.6 million in 2016 dollars) to Zurich dealer Thomas Ammann, which was a record for a work of art by Lichtenstein. The sale was described as the "highpoint" of a night in which Christie's achieved more than double the total sales prices of any other contemporary art auction up to that date. The seller of the work was Beatrice C. Mayer, the widow of Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago founder and board member Robert B. Mayer as well as daughter of Sara Lee Corporation founder Nathan Cummings. Prior to the sale the work was part of the Robert B. Mayer Memorial Loan Program and was exhibited at colleges and museums.Torpedo...Los! was expected to sell for $3 to 4 million at the time. In 1991, Mayer became one of the key benefactors of the new Museum of Contemporary Art Building.
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