​The New York-based Roy Lichtenstein Foundation has made substantial gifts to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art in Washington, DC in order to fulfil its chief purpose: “to facilitate public access” to the work of the US pop artist, says the foundation’s executive director, Jack Cowart. These are the first in a series of gifts that the foundation plans to give to museums in the US and Europe.

Up until this point, Lichtenstein Foundation, which is private, has focussed on publishing and lending works to various exhibitions. “Parting with works to go to art museums who can put them on their walls more normally seems like the more progressive idea, and we felt it was time to start doing that,” Cowart says.