Five Brushstrokes by Roy Lichtenstein

Recently unveiled at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Five Brushstrokes is an outdoor installation conceived and created by Roy Lichtenstein.  It is spread out over the Dudley and Mary Louise Sutphin Mall – the space between the museum’s main entrance and the current home of Robert Indiana’s “Love” statue.  Five Brushstrokes actually exists in five pieces and is essentially a series of paintings of paintbrushes in action.  It’s current arrangement, while approximating what Lichtenstein proposed, is a somewhat different creation depending upon the viewer’s angle of approach.

Five Brushstrokes by Roy Lichtenstein

It is interesting to note that Lichtenstein,  who prospered in the mid-1960s and was inspired by comic-book illustration is only now having this “new” work installed nearly 20 years after his death.(1997).  The IMA worked for more than a year with the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation to make the piece a part of the museum’s outdoor art collection and it was constructed here earlier in 2014.  For those who spend their life creating art, it is a humbling reminder to see that creations can take decades to come to fruition and may not even happen within the artist’s own lifetime.

As part of the Indianapolis Museum of Arts’ outdoor art collection, viewing Five Brushstrokes by Roy Lichtenstein is free – and, is a nice destination for some “drive-by” art appreciation.