Pop Art genius Lichtenstein gets major US retrospective

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Roy Lichtenstein, the American painter whose comic book-inspired canvases gave the Pop Art movement some of its most vivid images, is getting his first major retrospective since his death 15 years ago.

Beginning on Sunday, the National Gallery of Art in Washington will be exhibiting 130 of his paintings, drawings and sculptures, reflecting a long and prolific career that ended when he passed away at the age of 73.

The show moves to the Tate Modern museum in London next February and, in a less expansive form, to the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in July.

Its curator Harry Cooper called Lichtenstein, a New York native, "one of the most popular" modern artists alongside his contemporary Andy Warhol.