Pop art. A movement based on the imagery of consumerism and popular culture, flourishing from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, chiefly in the USA and Britain. The term was coined c. 1955 by the British critic Lawrence Alloway (‘I don't know precisely when it was first used', he later recalled, but ‘sometime between the winter of 1954–5 and 1957 the phrase gained currency in conversation'; the first appearance in print recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary is of September 1957). Initially Alloway used the term (and also the expression ‘Pop culture') to refer to ‘the products of the mass media', rather than to ‘works of art that draw upon popular culture', but by the early 1960s the phrase was being used as a label for such art. Comic books, advertisements, packaging, and images from television and the cinema were all part of the iconography of the movement, and it was a feature of Pop art in both the USA and Britain that it rejected any distinction between good and bad taste: ‘there was some tension between two aims: that of breaking down the distinction between high art and popular culture and that of using elements of popular culture in order to comment critically on modern society’ ( Jonathan Law, ed., European Culture: A Contemporary Companion, 1993).

In the USA Pop art was initially regarded as a reaction from Abstract Expressionism because its exponents brought back figural imagery and made use of impersonal handling. It was seen as a descendant of Dada (in fact Pop art is sometimes called Neo-Dada) because it debunked the seriousness of the art world and embraced the use or reproduction of commonplace subjects (comic strips, soup tins, highway signs) in a manner that had affinities with Duchamp's ready-mades. The most immediate inspiration, however, was the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, both of whom began to make an impact on the New York art scene in the mid-1950s. They opened a wide new range of subject-matter with Johns's paintings of flags, targets, and numbers and his sculptures of objects such as beer cans and Rauschenberg's collages and combine paintings with Coca-Cola bottles, stuffed birds, and photographs from magazines and newspapers. While often using similar subject-matter, Pop artists generally favoured commercial techniques in preference to the painterly manner of Johns and Rauschenberg. Examples are Andy Warhol's silkscreens of soup-tins, heads of Marilyn Monroe, and so on, Roy Lichtenstein's paintings in the manner of comic strips, Mel Ramos's brash pin-ups, and James Rosenquist's billboard-type pictures. Claes Oldenburg, whose subjects include ice-cream cones and hamburgers, has been the major Pop art sculptor.

John Wilmerding (American Art, 1976) writes that Pop art ‘cannot be separated from the culmination of affluence and prosperity during the post-World-War-II era. America had become a ravenously consuming society, packaging art as well as other products, indulging in commercial manipulation, and celebrating exhibitionism, self-promotion, and instant success … Pop's mass-media orientation may further be related to the acceleration of uniformity in most aspects of national life, whether restaurants or regional dialects. Shared by all Americans were the principal preoccupations of Pop art—sex, the automobile, and food. These became almost interchangeable, as Americans increasingly blurred distinctions between bathroom, highway, supermarket, and kitchen.’

In Britain, too, Pop art revelled in a new glossy prosperity following years of post-war austerity. British Pop was nurtured by the Independent Group and the work that is often cited as the first fully-fledged Pop art image (though some of Paolozzi's collages might also claim this title) was produced under its auspices— Richard Hamilton's collage Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? ( Kunsthalle, Tübingen, 1956). However, British art first made a major impact at the Young Contemporaries exhibition in 1961 (at about the same time that American art became a force). The artists in this exhibition included Derek Boshier, David Hockney, Allen Jones, R. B. Kitaj, and Peter Phillips, who had all been students at the Royal College of Art. In the same year the BBC screened Ken Russell's film ‘Pop Goes the Easel', in which Peter Blake was one of the featured artists. Other British exponents of Pop include the sculptor Clive Barker (1940– ), whose works are sometimes chromium-plated, the painter Gerald Laing (1936– ), best known for pictures of cars, and the painter, printmaker, and sculptor Colin Self (1941– ). Although there are exceptions (notably the erotic sculptures of Allen Jones), British Pop was generally less brash than American, expressing a more romantic view of the subject-matter in a way that can now strike a note of nostalgia. However, much of the imagery in British Pop came directly from the USA, expressing what Edward Lucie-Smith describes as ‘an uninhibited romantic hymn to a civilization half-real and half-imagined, a wonderland of pin-ups and pinball machines'.

Richard Hamilton defined Pop art as ‘popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business', and it was certainly a success on a material level, getting through to the public in a way that few modern movements do and attracting big-money collectors. However, it was scorned by many critics. Harold Rosenberg, for example, described Pop as being ‘Like a joke without humour, told over and over again until it begins to sound like a threat … Advertising art which advertises itself as art that hates advertising.’

Although mainly associated with Britain and the USA, Pop art has also had adherents elsewhere, including Valerio Adami in Italy and Erró, an Icelandic artist working in Paris. There are links with other movements, too, such as Nouveau Réalisme in France. Some Pop artists have continued working with Pop imagery long after the movement's heyday was over, Allen Jones in Britain being a leading example.

Pop art A movement based on the imagery of consumerism and popular culture, flourishing from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, chiefly in the USA and Britain. The term was coined c.1955 by Lawrence Alloway. Comic books, advertisements, packaging, and images from television and the cinema were all part of the iconography of the movement. In the USA Pop art was initially regarded as a reaction from Abstract Expressionism because its exponents brought back figural imagery and made use of Hard-Edge techniques. It was seen as a descendant of Dada (in fact Pop art is sometimes called Neo-Dada) because it debunked the seriousness of the art world and embraced the use or reproduction of commonplace subjects (comic strips, soup tins, highway signs) in a manner that had affinities with Duchamp's ready-mades. The most immediate inspiration, however, was the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, both of whom began to make an impact on the New York art scene in the mid-1950s. They opened a wide new range of subject matter with Johns's paintings of flags, targets, and numbers and his sculptures of objects such as beer cans and Rauschenberg's collages and combine paintings featuring Coca-Cola bottles, stuffed birds, and photographs from magazines and newspapers. While often using similar subject matter, Pop artists generally favoured commercial techniques in preference to the painterly manner of Johns and Rauschenberg. Examples are Andy Warhol's screenprints of soup tins and so on, Roy Lichtenstein's paintings in the manner of comic strips, and Mel Ramos's brash pin-ups. Claes Oldenberg, whose subjects include ice-cream cones and hamburgers, has been the major Pop art sculptor. John Wilmerding (American Art, 1976) writes that Pop art ‘cannot be separated from the culmination of affluence and prosperity during the post-World-War-II era. America had become a ravenously consuming society, packaging art as well as other products, indulging in commercial manipulation, and celebrating exhibitionism, self-promotion, and instant success … Pop's mass-media orientation may further be related to the acceleration of uniformity in most aspects of national life, whether restaurants or regional dialects. Shared by all Americans were the principal preoccupations of Pop art—sex, the automobile, and food.’

In Britain, too, Pop art revelled in a new glossy prosperity following years of post-war austerity. British Pop was nurtured by the Independent Group and the work that is often cited as the first fully-fledged Pop art image was produced under its auspices—Richard Hamilton's collage Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? (1956, Kunsthalle, Tübingen). However, British Pop art first made a major impact at the Young Contemporaries exhibition in 1961 (at about the same time that American Pop art became a force). The artists in this exhibition included Derek Boshier, David Hockney, Allen Jones, R. B. Kitaj, and Peter Phillips, who had all been students at the Royal College of Art. In the same year the BBC screened Ken Russell's Monitor film ‘Pop goes the easel’, in which Peter Blake was one of the featured artists. Although there are exceptions (notably the erotic sculptures of Allen Jones), British Pop art was generally less brash than American, expressing a more romantic view of the subject matter in a way that can now strike a note of nostalgia. Much of the imagery, however, came directly from the American world of pin-ups and pinball machines. Richard Hamilton defined Pop art as ‘popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business’, and it was certainly a success on a material level, getting through to the public in a way that few modern movements do and attracting big-money collectors. However, it was scorned by many critics. Harold Rosenberg, for example, described Pop as being ‘Like a joke without humour, told over and over again until it begins to sound like a threat … Advertising art which advertises itself as art that hates advertising.’

POP ART

POP ART refers to the paintings, sculpture, assemblages, and collages of a small, yet influential, group of artists from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. Unlike abstract expressionism, pop art incorporated a wide range of media, imagery, and subject matter hitherto excluded from the realm of fine art. Pop artists cared little about creating unique art objects; they preferred to borrow their subject matter and techniques from the mass media, often transforming widely familiar photographs, icons, and styles into ironic visual artifacts. Such is the case in two of the most recognizable works of American pop art: Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup Can (1964), a gigantic silkscreen of the iconic red-and-white can, and Roy Lichtenstein's Whaam! (1963), one of his many paintings rendered in the style of a comic book image.

American pop art emerged from a number of converging interests both in the United States and abroad. As early as 1913, Marcel Duchamp introduced "ready made" objects into a fine-art context. Similarly Robert Rauschenberg's "combine-paintings" and Jasper John's flag paintings of the mid-1950s are frequently cited as examples of proto-pop. However, the term "pop art" originated in Britain, where it had reached print by 1957. In the strictest sense, pop art was born in a series of discussions at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts by the Independent Group, a loose coalition of artists and critics fascinated with postwar American popular culture. The 1956 "This Is Tomorrow" exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery introduced many of the conventions of pop art. Its most famous work, Richard Hamilton's collage Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? (1956), uses consumerist imagery from magazines, advertisements, and comic books to parody media representations of the American dream.

By the early 1960s, American pop artists were drawing upon many of the same sources as their British counterparts. Between 1960 and 1961, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Mel Ramos each produced a series of paintings based on comic book characters. James Rosenquist's early work juxtaposed billboard images in an attempt to reproduce the sensual overload characteristic of American culture. As the decade progressed, and a sense of group identity took hold, pop artists strove even further to challenge long-held beliefs within the art community. The work of such artists as Tom Wesselmann, Ed Ruscha, Claes Oldenburg, and Jim Dine introduced even greater levels of depersonalization, irony, even vulgarity, into American fine art.

Not surprisingly, older critics were often hostile toward pop art. Despite the social critique found in much pop art, it quickly found a home in many of America's premiere collections and galleries. Several pop artists willingly indulged the media's appetite for bright, attention-grabbing art. Andy Warhol's sales skyrocketed in the late-1960s as he churned out highly recognizable silk screens of celebrities and consumer products. By the decade's end, however, the movement itself was becoming obsolete. Although pop art was rapidly succeeded by other artistic trends, its emphasis on literalism, familiar imagery, and mechanical methods of production would have a tremendous influence on the art of the following three decades.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alloway, Lawrence. American Pop Art. New York: Collier Books, 1974.

Crow, Thomas E. The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent 1955–1969. London: George Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1996.

Livingstone, Marco. Pop Art: A Continuing History. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000.

John M.Kinder

pop art a movement that first emerged in Great Britain at the end of the 1950s as a reaction against the seriousness of abstract expressionism . British and American pop artists employed a common imagery found in comic strips, soup cans, and Coke bottles to express formal abstract relationships. By this means they provided a meeting ground where artist and layman could come to terms with art. Incorporating techniques of sign painting and commercial art into their work, as well as commercial literary imagery, pop artists such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol attempted to fuse elements of popular and high culture to erase the boundaries between the two.

Bibliography: See L. Alloway, ed. Modern Dreams: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Pop Art (1988).

pop art began in Britain in the mid-1950s and then spread to America. The movement was based upon the assumption that all aspects of modern life, including advertising, cinema, popular music, and consumer goods, were in themselves art-forms. The term was coined by art critic Lawrence Alloway, one of a number of artists, architects, and critics, known as the Independent Group, who met at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. Among the more important names associated with British pop art were Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake, and David Hockney.

June Cochrane

pop art Movement inspired by consumerist images and popular culture that flourished in the USA and Britain from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Pop art borrowed ideas from comic books, advertisements, packaging, television, and films. Characteristic techniques included silk-screen printing and collage. Leading artists included Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Hamilton, and David Hockney.

pop art • n. art based on modern popular culture and the mass media, esp. as a critical or ironic comment on traditional fine art values.