Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 3/1/2023
CHICOPEE — Former art teacher and current School Committee member David Barsalou has had his interest in uncovering the alleged plagiarism of the late pop artist Roy Lichtenstein well recignized. His research is now part of a new documentary.
“WHAAM! BLAM! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation” can currently be seen on the festival circuit and will appear on March 8 at the Crystal Palace International Film Festival in London, United Kingdom.
Barsalou is featured in the preview of the film, which can be seen online at https://vimeo.com/790161475?. The movie presents artists and historians who are critical of Lichtenstein’s work as well as art historians who praise him.
As the film’s director, Jim Hussey, posted on the film’s Facebook page, “Along with Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein created Pop Art in the 1960’s. His paintings hang in the world’s greatest galleries and can fetch more than $150 million. But the comic artists whose work was ‘appropriated’ by Lichtenstein view him as a plagiarist. The documentary ‘WHAAM! BLAM! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation’ asks the question: was Lichtenstein a great artist, a thief, or both?”
None of the artists whose original work was copied by Lichtenstein ever received credit or compensation for Lichtenstein’s new work. One of the works, “Whamm!” was based on work presented in the DC comic “All American Men of War” published in 1962. It now hangs in the Tate Modern art museum in London.
A comic book fan, Barsalou first realized the influence of comic book art on pop artists Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Mel Ramos when he was in art school in Hartford in the late 1970s. In 1979, he presented his research in a paper for a class that shows how the three artists used everyday images as the basis for their brand of art.
In the case of Lichtenstein, Barsalou showed how he took individual panels from romance comic books and reproduced them as large canvases. He received a grade of “A” for the paper and he explained to Reminder Publishing his project “Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein” evolved out of that paper.
“I thought, ‘Maybe I’m onto something,” he recalled.
He would then comb through the inventory of comic book dealers to find the source material to further his work and explained the advent of eBay helped him considerably.
“It was a gold mine for me,” he said.
He saw that the artists used by Lichtenstein included Russ Heath, Russ Andru, Milton Caniff, George Tuska, Joe Kubert and Hy Eisman.
In 2000, Barsalou staged his first exhibition at a gallery space at Gasoline Alley in Springfield. He displayed an enlargement of the original comic book panel mounted side-by-side with the work that Lichtenstein did.
“It’s been exploding ever since,” he said. He had an exhibition at the former Bing Arts Center in Springfield and has been a regular guest at the Bing Comic Con showing his work.
His Flickr page received 73,000 hits after the documentary made its premiere in Florida.
“I can’t keep up with it,” he noted.
Lichtenstein died in 1997 and the foundation that was started to preserve his work was very critical of Barsalou’s project. The criticism has died down, he noted, but at one time they “hammered” him, including sending him a cease-and-desist letter, which Barsalou ignored.
Hussey told Reminder Publishing he started the Lichtenstein project in 2015 and added as a child he read comics and was a fan of Heath’s work. He stopped reading comics in high school but kept his collection.
Hussey hadn’t thought about Heath for 35 years, but when he saw a story about Barsalou’s work – and started working on the film – he arranged to meet Heath. Hussey interviewed the artist for the film and called the experience “exciting and sad.” The artist, who died in 2018 at age 91, was struggling and lived in poverty, Hussey added.
Hussey was also able to interview Eisman and spoke to contemporary artists such as Dave Gibbons, known for his work in “Watchmen.”
He said he tailored the film for a general audience and wanted to present both sides of the story.
The director called Barsalou’s research a “goldmine,” and added the film wouldn’t have existed without his work.
The movie will be available through on-demand and on DVD in April. A streaming service has not yet been arranged. Hussey added he has applied to have the film screened at the Berkshire Film Festival but has not yet heard if it has been accepted.
For Barsalou, his research continues and he added he “works on it every single day.” His website is http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html.
Speaking of the new film he said, “You couldn’t ask for anything better than this.”