Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 13, 2015
Drowning Girl is a 1963 pop art painting with oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas by Roy Lichtenstein (pictured). Utilizing the conventions of comic book art, a thought bubble conveys the thoughts of the figure, while Ben-Day dots echo the effect of the mechanized printing process. Part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection since 1971, the painting is considered among Lichtenstein's most significant works, perhaps on a par with Whaam!, his acclaimed 1963 diptych. Drowning Girl has been described as a "masterpiece of melodrama", and is one of the artist's earliest images depicting women in tragic situations, a theme to which he often returned in the mid-1960s. The painting shows a teary-eyed woman on a turbulent sea, declaring that she would rather sink in the ocean than call Brad. (Several Lichtenstein works contain text referring to an absent "Brad".) The narrative element highlights the clichéd melodrama, while its graphics reiterate Lichtenstein's theme of painterly work depicting mechanized reproduction. The work is derived from a 1962 DC Comics panel, while also borrowing from Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa and from works by modernist artists Jean Arp and Joan Miró. (Full article...)