Eighteen Lichtenstein Pieces Join the Gap Rack as the Whitney Prepares "Like New"

The Whitney Museum of American Art and Gap released a joint line of clothing this week, 18 pieces in all, each drawn from paintings by Roy Lichtenstein. The partnership comes ahead of "Roy Lichtenstein: Like New," the museum's coming exhibition devoted to the Pop master. For collectors, that sequence matters: the merchandise arrives first, and the paintings follow on the walls in New York. A collection of 18 is a full assortment, large enough for a shopper to choose among several images instead of settling for one souvenir. Lichtenstein built his pictures from bold outlines, flat color and the dot patterns of commercial printing, so his work translates to fabric as easily as anything in the American canon. A shirt or jacket carrying one of those images is a clear sign of the show to come, and it lets people take part in the exhibition before its doors open. The pairing puts a New York museum alongside an American retailer to celebrate an American painter, and that is reason enough for these pages to take note.

With reporting from ARTnews.