L.A. Collections on Display

Among the smaller surprises in the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art is the number of works--including some of the best--that come from Los Angeles collections.

More than 15% of the show, or 14 of 91 paintings and sculptures, has been drawn from local holdings: Betty Asher, Eli and Edythe Broad, Douglas S. Cramer, David Geffen, Steve Martin, the estate of Marcia Weisman and MOCA’s own Panza Collection.

Together with two Lichtensteins from the Panza Collection not on view, and counting the great 1963 “Cold Shoulder” that is a promised gift to the County Museum of Art from Robert Halff of Beverly Hills, an estimable array of the artist’s work is owned locally.

With 12 dating from the 1960s--capped by the great 1963 fighter-pilot canvas, “Okay, Hot-Shot!,” from the Geffen collection--those combined holdings are especially rich in paintings and sculptures from Lichtenstein’s most consequential period.

It only seems right. After all, not only are several of those collectors prominent in the entertainment industry, Los Angeles also seems an apt home for an art wittily conversant with the strange machinery of mass culture.