…I started to make portraits of artist friends in their studios. I had a curiosity and need to observe how they were setting up their workspaces and what they were surrounding themselves with. I wondered how they spent their days.

@ Laurie Lambrecht, Roy with Reflections on the Prom, 1990. Image courtesy of the artist.

In 1990 I was given a dream gift, to work as an assistant to Roy Lichtenstein in his New York City and Southampton studios. After taking a ten year hiatus from photography (I had a business designing and making sweaters), I was feverishly making pictures again. I had left the nurturing, inspiring community of graduate school and hadn’t touched my cameras for nearly seven years. In the months before working with Lichtenstein I started to make portraits of artist friends in their studios. I had a curiosity and need to observe how they were setting up their workspaces and what they were surrounding themselves with. I wondered how they spent their days.

The photograph I chose to share here is “Roy: Reflections on the Prom,” made in 1990. It is a true slice of the atmosphere of being in Roy’s studio and my experience being in his presence while working. The view is from my desk chair, my spot as the fly-on-the-wall. I felt invisible, both there and not there. There was calmness in Roy’s workspace but at the same time there was a continuous productive energy with many projects in process simultaneously.

“…I started to make portraits of artist friends in their studios. I had a curiosity and need to observe how they were setting up their workspaces and what they were surrounding themselves with. I wondered how they spent their days.”

In the foreground is an open folder holding papers of various patterns (Ben-Day dots, diagonal stripes) printed for Roy to use in the preparatory collaging stage of his paintings. It was like a do-it-yourself kit to make a Lichtenstein!

The way Roy is leaning in his chair gives a clue of his immersion in the world of the painting in front of him. At this moment, he was concentrating on making final color decisions. The blur of a foot to his right is the artist Jamie DePasquale, Roy’s long time studio assistant. The long exposure of my tripod-held Hasselblad captures him switching out alternative choices of colored collage pieces taped to the canvas.

To the right of Lichtenstein’s elbow is the very beginning of a maquette for a Brushstroke sculpture simply fashioned out of cut and bent foamcore. On the left is a bronze “Airplane” sculpture recently delivered from the foundry and ready to be painted. Oh, and yeah, there’s another painting in the works on the upper right, “Reflections on the Gift.” Roy’s ideas and work flowed from a seemingly magical source.

—Laurie Lambrecht

Laurie Lambrecht is a fine art photographer based in New York City and Bridgehampton, NY. In addition to working with Roy Lichtenstein (1990-1992), she also had the privilege of working with Robert Wilson during the early years of his Watermill Center. Her work has been exhibited widely and is in many private and public collections including the National Gallery of Art, the Portland Art Museum and the J.P. Morgan Collection. In 2014, Lambrecht was awarded a fellowship from the Rauschenberg Foundation where she completed her most recent body of work Jungle Road. In spring 2015, she will be working in Wyoming at the Jentel Artist Residency, where she will continue to explore perception, nature and the landscape. Her work is represented by The Drawing Room gallery in East Hampton, NY and Rick Wester Fine Art in New York City.

View more work on the artist’s website at www.laurielambrecht.com.