Prints of Roy Lichtenstein

A handsomely produced inventory of the printed works of a witty pop movement artist, this book is a lavish pleasure. Unlike fellow pop artists Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist, Lichtenstein is as much a printmaker as a painter. As Cortlett (coauthor, A Graphic Muse: Prints by Contemporary Women) notes, the artist's work revitalizes the ``exhausted symbols of popular culture'' in benday dots, heavy black outlines and abstracted reflections, woodgrain and architecture, a ``potent syntax'' that the book reproduces faithfully. Cortlett and Fine, staff members at the National Gallery of Art, where the traveling exhibition this book accompanies will begin, include even ephemeral items, like book covers and shopping bags; Fine's notes on the 349 color plates and 58 black-and-white illustrations are detailed. (Dec.)