Roy Lichtenstein’s I Love Liberty (1982) stands as both a celebration and an interrogation of American ideals, merging patriotic iconography with the artist’s unmistakable Pop sensibility. Created at the height of his mature period, the work is at once luminous, ironic, and deeply emblematic of Lichtenstein’s ability to translate the cultural symbols of his time into a visual language that is at once seductive and analytical.

The composition centers on the Statue of Liberty — one of the most enduring emblems of American identity — reimagined through Lichtenstein’s cool geometry and precise graphic technique. Her familiar profile emerges in bold contour, defined not by sculptural modeling but by flat zones of color and Ben-Day dots. The monumental figure, stripped of pathos yet radiant with visual power, rises against a sky of comic-book brilliance, her torch a beacon rendered in mechanical perfection.

Lichtenstein transforms this icon not into an object of worship but into a mirror of collective imagination — the way mass media has reproduced and reinterpreted Liberty until she becomes as much an image as an ideal. The title phrase, I Love Liberty, vibrates with ambiguity: is it an earnest declaration, a pop slogan, or a wry comment on patriotism turned advertisement? The painting oscillates between reverence and critique, much like the culture it reflects.

Color plays a commanding role in the composition. The palette — pure red, white, and blue — gleams with symbolic precision, yet its saturation and graphic flatness lend it the sheen of a printed poster. The effect is both celebratory and self-conscious, evoking the tension between genuine sentiment and the stylization of national identity. The repetition of pattern and line suggests both mechanical production and emotional distance, inviting the viewer to consider how symbols, once sacred, become commodities of vision.

I Love Liberty also marks Lichtenstein’s engagement with the American Bicentennial spirit that lingered into the 1980s, a period of renewed political optimism and cultural branding. Commissioned by People for the American Way for a televised event, the work was conceived not as irony alone, but as a reflection on shared ideals in an age when images mediated everything — even patriotism.

In its formal perfection and conceptual subtlety, I Love Liberty encapsulates Lichtenstein’s enduring genius: his ability to distill vast cultural ideas into a single, resonant image. The Statue of Liberty, rendered with mechanical precision yet illuminated by the warmth of color and idea, becomes a metaphor for the American condition — steadfast, idealized, endlessly reproduced, and forever open to reinterpretation. The result is a work of shimmering clarity and layered meaning: at once patriotic and philosophical, celebratory and questioning, timeless and unmistakably of its moment.

Created in 1982, Roy Lichtenstein I Love Liberty, 1982 is an offset lithograph on lightweight, white wove paper. This work is hand-signed and dated by Roy Lichtenstein (New York, 1923 – New York, 1997) in pencil in the lower right margin and is from the edition of 250.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:

Roy Lichtenstein I Love Liberty, 1982 is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the sale of the work).

1.  Corlett, Lee Mary. The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein A Catalogue Raisonné 1948-1997. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2002. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. 205.
2. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany this artwork.

About the Framing:

Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Roy Lichtenstein I Love Liberty, 1982 is presented in a complementary moulding and optical grade Plexiglas.