Isabel and Roy

-Funding of the Ideastream Public Media production of "Isabel & Roy" was provided by the William M. Weiss Foundation.

-We built our house in the 1950s.

We didn't know anything.

It was our first house.

I decided we should get a modern person to do the decorating.

And Isabel was well-known at that time.

And she understood what we were doing perfectly, which amazed me.

-Isabel Lichtenstein was a decorator, and she was the decorator of my parents' home in Shaker Heights.

-She was a very nice, very sweet, very smart lady.

And she just loved the fact that she had an artist husband.

The fact that he was starving to death didn't seem to matter because she was making a very good living.

-She made the money -- Isabel.

She was one of the most interesting people I ever met.

Her ending was tragic.

-Nobody knew at that point who he was going to become.

-Lichtenstein fundamentally changed the way we understood and understand painting.

Now, of course, his work sells for astronomical figures.

[ Goat bleats ] -Some of these older pictures, I'm not sure who they are, these right here.

Mm-hmm.

-That was her senior picture.

-This was my Aunt Isabel's graduation picture when she graduated from high school.

Oh, she's so pretty.

She looked pretty in whatever she had on.

She's just like that, you know?

-Isabel Lichtenstein was someone who was extremely enterprising, extremely intelligent, and somewhat frustrated by her youth in a small town.

-Haviland was a pretty booming little town.

-It was always a little town, but they had a general store.

You could get all your groceries there.

Everybody was pretty content.

Lived a happy life there as I grew up.

Things have changed a lot over the years, but still on the map.

-Loved those dances.

[ Laughs ] -These were women and the ladies in the church.

Everybody knew everybody else.

Everybody else knows everybody else's business.

-She grew up in a very religious family, and she became a natural rebel because of it.

And she didn't want to live in the country.

-Her nickname was Queen Isabel, and she didn't get her hands too dirty, and she was a little bit above the others as far as she was smart enough to get out of a lot of the old heavy farm work, you know?

But she wasn't really of the intellect to be real content on the farm.

-I know one thing.

I'll tell you what they used to have to do.

They used to have to milk the cows before they went on a date.

Now, you wouldn't like that.

I wouldn't, either.

[ Laughs ] Nobody ever said anything about why she left.

I think that she just probably just wanted to get away, you know, pursue her career.

-Roy's New York parents wanted him to have a four-year college degree.

He wanted to go to art school, presumably in the city, but they wouldn't allow that.

So Ohio State had a studio program and a four-year degree, because they felt that he had to be able to teach if he couldn't make it with his art.

Isabel did get into college, but there was so little money that she didn't make it past about a year, and she got a job as a waitress in Cleveland.

Being very creative, not knowing quite what to do with it, she volunteered at the Ten-Thirty Art Gallery, which was an artist co-op gallery, and I think she found what she wanted to do.

She was working with artists, she was helping sell things.

Things were being made.

She was really part of the community and really learning as she went.

-I know on occasions I've had works come in with Ten-Thirty labels.

I feel that people behind it, that were running it, they had a good eye, and I think they were here to promote the Cleveland art and they weren't just out chasing popular names to have.

I just really admire the works that came out of there.

-Algesa O'Sickey was the director of the Ten-Thirty Gallery, and then in 1949, through Algesa and Joseph O'Sickey, who were good friends of Roy's, Isabel was introduced to Roy.

And they were married in June 1949.

[ Indistinct conversations ] [ Fingers snapping ] [ Lighters clicking ] Everyone I spoke to who knew Isabel always described her as dramatic, flamboyant, generous, life of the party.

Whereas Roy was very quiet and reserved.

And so, I think it may have been a case, clich though it is, of opposites attracting.

He always was very, very shy.

In high school, he couldn't get dates but yet had a great focus, because he always wanted to be an artist.

In the Cleveland days, he had to work during the day, so, often, he had to paint at night because he had all sorts of jobs.

He taught at the Cooper School, which was a commercial art school in Cleveland.

He worked on this magazine project to make a before and after of a model city of a neighborhood in Cleveland.

And Roy did not want to do the new model city.

He wanted to do the before, the slums.

So that's what he worked on.

And distressed the buildings and did all sorts of things.

He was a window dresser in Halle's Department Store, and eventually, he ended up as an engineering draftsman at Republic Steel.

But he was not really expressing himself as an artist on a day-to-day basis.

Isabel wanted to work, too, and she learned about the interior design business and, really, within about a year or so went out on her own and was really in her element.

-Homes have more than new plans.

They have new patterns for living, made attractive by luxurious interiors.

-She really was an exponent of what we would call today mid-century modern.

And she had a lot of upper-middle-class families in the Cleveland area, like Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights.

-These are how many years old?

That's how she would tell people what colors, I guess, to use for their homes... their chairs, their sofas, what colors to use.

It's raw silk.

It's beautiful.

And then he would hang their curtains.

That's what he did.

-If the drapes needed to be hung, he did hang the curtains because, of course, that would be free.

-He came to our house to hang the drapes because you had to get the drapes hung.

That was part of the deal.

And he was free.

And he hung them, and they didn't do too well.

He came back and hung them a second time.

He was very quiet and said all the things you're supposed to say.

"Oh, hello.

How are you?

Good to see you again," you know?

But beyond that, he didn't make any attempt to mingle with her clients.

He asked us if we wanted to buy a painting.

And I must admit that the paintings, I thought, were the worst things I'd ever seen.

And we always say, "We were so smart we didn't buy one of his paintings," you know?

I never got him to sign the drapes.

That's the trouble.

-We're looking at "The Knight (Self-Portrait)" by Lichtenstein.

It's from 1951, the first year that he lived in Cleveland.

Lichtenstein's knight is hardly a knight in shining armor.

He's rendered in a childlike hand.

He looks more like a toy.

Common themes, common subjects in the 1950s are tropes of medieval Europe and ideals of the American West.

And he subjects that to the lens of children's art.

That's his lens for bringing down high culture.

It's this relationship to the high and the low.

In the 1960s, he's deflating ideals of fine art through the lens of commercial culture and mass media.

Some of his audience might have been put off by the fact that, "Wait a minute, this isn't art as we expect it to be."

-In 1952, Lichtenstein had a show in Cleveland, and the critic of the "Cleveland News" was a woman named Louise Bruner, and she caused the biggest controversy that Lichtenstein had ever had to date.

She wrote that, "He draws like a child.

This is foolish.

It was terrible."

And what happened after that is that all of the more progressive local artists were interviewed, said, "This is good.

And then there were people saying, "This is bad."

So to have this much, quote unquote, news about an art show was unusual.

[ Gunshot ] [ Dramatic music plays ] In the 1950s, you see him absorbing, you know, the 1950s brings a proliferation of television.

There are record sales of television sets.

-E-Z Pop popped in its own pan.

-You mean E-Z Pop popped in its own pan?

-Now you're swinging, you crazy man.

-I watched TV while he did my portrait.

TV was an instant babysitter.

That's the only way I would sit still.

He was so shy.

I remember, when he did that portrait, my mother begged him twice to sign, and finally, he did.

My parents really became very close friends with him.

-One of the very few portraits that Roy painted.

He really didn't like painting portraits.

But he was very friendly with Carol's parents.

And Carol's father, Carl Salus, was a psychiatrist, and Roy gave him some painting lessons.

-For some people, he made mosaic tables for their homes.

-The mosaics were definitely something that was connected to Isabel Lichtenstein's business.

I don't think he would have made them otherwise.

And there really are maybe between 9 and 12 different sorts of mosaic tables that he made, and there are some really terrific ones.

-This is a mosaic tabletop that Roy did for my bedroom as a child.

You can see already, in 1951, the prefiguration of Ben Day dots.

-Ben Day dots, one of the major innovations that's associated with his career.

In Lichtenstein's hand, this is a painted rendering of a print code.

The Ben Day dots were invented by Benjamin Day in 1879 as a technique to produce a printed image by means of gradations of shading.

With the Ben Day dots, Lichtenstein is confusing the distinction between the unique painted image and the mechanically reproduced one.

He's taking the imagery that we're surrounded by in our daily newspapers, and he is using that to reflect back to us these facts of contemporary visual culture.

And that's actually, to my mind, one of the things that's very exciting about contemporary art, that it offers us new ways to see the world that's surrounding us.

[ Dog barking ] -I remember going to their house and what a mess it was.

They had paintings everywhere.

They had cupboards, and they had paintings on all the cupboards.

I never saw a house like that.

And she had fabric samples everywhere.

-Roy also encouraged her to paint, so she actually did paint a little bit, too.

Roy taught her a little bit, but she was mostly self-taught.

So they're kind of a faux primitive.

[ Insects chirping ] -Hi, again, everybody.

This is Bill Randle back with a top-ten... -But how much time she had for that -- Because she did eventually in Cleveland, in 1954 and 1956, have her two sons and a very busy design business there, which she loved.

And she was the primary breadwinner for a while.

- When I was just a little girl I asked my mother, "What will I be?

Will I be pretty?"

-People used to tease Roy about her being the breadwinner.

I think he never minded, not just about the money, but he was, you know, perfectly happy with her success.

People thought they were weird.

- The future's not ours to see Qu ser, ser What will be, will be -He called him "Pabby."

He loved Picasso.

-Originally, apparently, they wanted to name me Pablo after both Picasso and Casals.

And they always called me "Pabby" up to a certain point.

And then I guess once I started school and had to use my official name...

So I can kind of date people I knew from early childhood who would still call me Pabby.

-I think Isabel loved being in Cleveland.

I think it was the apex of her career.

I don't think she minded running a business and being the breadwinner.

Both of them were evolved enough that they were okay with it, but Roy Lichtenstein was unhappy -- not because his wife was successful, but because he was spinning his wheels professionally.

The only way Roy Lichtenstein was going to advance professionally was to move away from Cleveland.

And the only way Isabel Lichtenstein was going to be so fulfilled professionally was to stay in Cleveland.

And, of course, that didn't happen.

[ Indistinct conversations ] The obverse of Isabel Lichtenstein being the life of the party was that she was an alcoholic, which was not something that was understood as a disease or treated well.

That was obviously a growing problem in the marriage.

Although, I think in Cleveland, while she was professionally fulfilled, she was functioning quite well, but when they moved to Oswego and she lost her design business, she filled the time with drinking.

-I remember when I became really aware of her drinking, but once I was aware of it, I don't know that she was ever not drunk.

It's just to what extreme.

There was the functioning part, and then there was the "conked down on the sofa" part.

-I don't know how much Roy Lichtenstein could or couldn't do to stop it.

I mean, she was never, to my knowledge, in A.A. or anything like that.

And women in those days often hid being alcoholics.

You could be at home drinking, and people wouldn't know.

You wouldn't have to go out on the street.

-He had a job at Rutgers, and then he ended up in Manhattan.

And the last time I remember being in his studio, I think that was 1961.

And he made the rotisserie cooker, which you can see in every book now.

That's a pop art.

And I thought he was out of his mind.

-There was a big indigo blue chest of drawers that was in a garage or utility room or something, and it was full of upholstery fabric and curtain fabric and whatever.

They got mildew-ier and mildew-ier as the years went on.

-I remember she said, "Roy's becoming so famous."

And then they were getting divorced.

-Roy Lichtenstein always wanted to be an artist, and that particular painting is almost the fable.

It's the archetypal fable of the dream come true.

It represents what happened to him and very few others.

But in his case, reality actually outstripped his imagination.

All he ever wanted to do was get to New York and have some kind of respectable career and maybe not have to work all the time, just be able to paint a little bit more.

And what happened was far more spectacular.

-You know, I remember arguments, and then I remember when, you know, he sat us down to tell us that they were going to separate, and it was very upsetting.

I don't remember the words.

I just remember sitting on our beds in our room and him telling us.

And I know I got very upset by it.

-She became more incapacitated and, I think, kind of angry and sarcastic and began to be resentful of Roy Lichtenstein.

-And I think he couldn't take the alcoholic anymore.

I think it's good he got out.

For her whole life, she never really tried to quit.

So he was right to get out and, you know, save himself.

She did love her kids.

Some of her paintings have us as kids and her, and they're kind of intertwined.

They're primitive paintings.

And one that I'm thinking of has my brother and me and her in the middle, and they're all kind of one person.

We grow out of her, basically.

[ Television playing ] "Resurrection" was the first film I directed.

It was a short film.

I'd been writing some short stories and stuff, so I had some material that could be made into a movie.

The look of the room is the last place in Princeton that we lived.

And the mother kind of drunk on the couch and watching old movies with her son and the pet monkey, which she had... ...and the goat that we'd get in the house every once in a while.

[ Laughs ] So it was -- Sort of the whole environment was accurate.

We had to milk the goat twice a day.

We kept it.

We did drink goat milk, not exclusively.

And I think most of it went down the drain.

She grew up on a farm, and she kind of tried to re-create the farm in this suburban place.

[ Goats bleating ] -And there she is.

Aunt Isabel.

And there you are.

And this was -- What did we say that was?

In 1976.

And, um... -I think that was her last visit to the farm.

-That was the last visit.

You're right.

Oh, yeah, she don't look anything like she did when she was younger.

Because she -- Well, first of all, she's wearing glasses.

-You remember talking to her at all during that visit?

-I talked to her some, but I think the women kind of took over, the sisters and stuff.

-Well, she wasn't thinking very straight at that time.

She was mentally deteriorating... She didn't understand, you know, all that.

It was just kind of a sad thing, but it was even more sad to me to think that, you know, my sister was failing mentally like that.

-Oh, yeah.

Because she was so sharp.

-Yeah.

-I think you also have to understand, after they separated, is that Roy Lichtenstein in '63 did begin to make money.

All of the '60s paintings were sold very soon after they were painted.

But he always supported Isabel beyond alimony, beyond the children, all the time, from the beginning to the end.

-Her liver was about to go, and she was hospitalized.

And I remember being -- Basically when she was taken away, then her friends kind of saying, "Okay, she's not gonna make it.

Get prepared."

And then she would come back.

-Even when she was dying, Roy was taking her to doctors to see if there was anything she could do, because she eventually did have a cancer.

And he paid for the funeral and he got in touch with the relatives, so he never forgot her.

-Who knows what the trajectory of her life would have been if my father had gotten a job in Cleveland so that she could stay and continue her business and grow her business?

Or if it had been a more modern time and she didn't have to go with her husband because he had a job... and give up hers.

-Roy Lichtenstein is one of the pioneers who challenged convention and opened our eyes to new styles of expression.

I hope that the pioneering spirit exemplified by Roy Lichtenstein will always, always live in the artists of America.

[ Applause ] -Yeah, I have fond memories of her.

She was full of life.

That's why -- It's probably why she was so good at decorating.

I think she lost her spirit there when she got older.

You know, things happen in your life that makes it harder sometimes.

You don't know what you're gonna go through in life.

You have no idea.

-Funding of the Ideastream Public Media production of "Isabel & Roy" was provided by the William M. Weiss Foundation.