No-Nox

Roy Lichtenstein, artist

1923–1997

No-Nox, 1962

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: pencil; Arches® paper

Dimensions:
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 65.1 x 50 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 25 5/8 x 19 11/16 in
Frame Dimensions (Height x Width x Depth): 32 1/4 x 24 1/4 x 1 in
Weight (Weight): 9 lbs

Credit line: Gift from the Gene Swenson Collection

Accession number: 1970.0130

Not on display

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The outfit worn by this subject indicates that he is a gas station
attendant, although perhaps a generic one rather than a specific corporate representative. The source for the image and the title may have been an advertisement for Gulf Oil’s No-Nox ethyl gasoline, a popular fuel of the period. Corporate historians, however, have noted that Gulf’s attendant uniforms of the early 1960s differed slightly from that in the drawing.
Roy Lichtenstein often referred to Pop Art as the “gas station culture.” His images were famously drawn from ads and signs, as well as comic strips, finding such aspects of the popular culture interesting as subject matter. The art critic Gene Swenson wrote that such commercial subjects would “revitalize our sense of the contemporary world.”
The drawing was acquired in 1962 by Swenson, a young Kansasborn Yale alumnus who was active as an arts writer in New York City and was an early champion of emerging Pop artists. His series of interviews with Lichtenstein and other leaders of the new movement appeared in Artnews in 1963 and remains a prime document in the history of Pop Art. Following Swenson’s death in 1969, his family carried out the collector’s intended gift to the Museum, which included works by Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Indiana, and many more. CCE