At A Glance
Part of Museum Without Walls: AUDIO program
Now owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the sculpture was originally loaned to the law firm Duane Morris LLP from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation
Lichtenstein was a pioneering pop artist whose work was influenced by popular advertising and comic book images
The brushstroke was one of the artist’s frequent motifs
The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Association for Public Art worked with the law firm and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation to bring the sculpture to the city.
Roy Lichtenstein’s Brushstroke Group was brought to United Plaza courtesy of Duane Morris LLP, one of the city’s largest law firms, which occupies the adjacent building. In an unusual arrangement, the sculpture was loaned to Duane Morris from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. In 2021, Brushstroke Group was gifted to the Philadelphia Museum of Art by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, and remains on loan to Duane Morris LLP.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Association for Public Art worked with the law firm and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation to bring the sculpture to the city. Lichtenstein was a pioneering pop artist whose work was influenced by popular advertising and comic book images. The brushstroke was one of his frequent motifs. The sculpture rises 29 feet high, and it is constructed of half-inch aluminum plate finished with a special durable paint used in the airline industry.
The Brushstroke Group is an exuberant addition to Philadelphia’s “museum without walls” and joins Center City’s other spirited pop-art icons – Robert Indiana’s LOVE and Claus Oldenburg’s Clothespin.
RESOURCES
Voices heard in the program:
Dorothy Lichtenstein is the widow of the artist, Roy Lichtenstein, and President of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. She has been active in the New York contemporary art scene since the early 1960s. She married Roy Lichtenstein in 1968.
Jack Cowart is the Executive Director of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. Cowart is a widely published and recognized authority on Roy Lichtenstein and Henri Matisse, as well as other 20th-century modern and contemporary artists.
Ruth Fine serves on the Board of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and is a former curator at the National Gallery of Art. She was the curator of the 1994 exhibition “The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein”, and produced the accompanying catalogue raisonné.
Segment Producer: Jenny Lawton
This audio was kindly supported by Duane Morris LLP.
A program of the Association for Public Art (formerly the Fairmount Park Art Association), Museum Without Walls: AUDIO is an innovative and accessible outdoor sculpture audio program for Philadelphia’s preeminent collection of public art.
A “multi-platform” interactive audio experience – available for free by cell phone, mobile app, or on our website – Museum Without Walls: AUDIO offers the unique histories that are not typically expressed on outdoor permanent signage.
Unlike audio tours that have a single authoritative guide or narrator, each speaker featured in Museum Without Walls: AUDIO is an “authentic voice” – someone who is connected to the sculpture by knowledge, experience, or affiliation.
Over 150 unique voices are featured, including artists, educators, scientists, writers, curators, civic leaders, and historians.
