Art, literature & historyThe Knight (Self-Portrait)
c. 1951
- Dating
- Approximate
- Held at
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 86 x 74.8 x 6.4 cm (33 7/8 x 29 7/16 x 2 1/2 in.); Unframed: 61.3 x 50.9 cm (24 1/8 x 20 1/16 in.)
- Collection no.
- 2014.5
- Attribution
- By the artist
Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art
About this artwork
The Knight (Self-Portrait) — Roy Lichtenstein. c. 1951.
Medium: oil on canvas. Dimensions: Framed: 86 x 74.8 x 6.4 cm (33 7/8 x 29 7/16 x 2 1/2 in.); Unframed: 61.3 x 50.9 cm (24 1/8 x 20 1/16 in.).
Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
Lichtenstein’s painting is an irreverent rendering of a medieval knight adorned in chainmail and brandishing a weapon and shield. As a goofy-grinned self-portrait, it includes an element of humorous self-deprecation as well. The artist described his works from this period as “taking the kind of stodgy pictures you see in history textbooks and redoing them in a modern-art way.”
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.