Pop Art
1960-1965
Pop Art
Pop Art was first coined in Britain in 1955 but
unsurprisingly the Americans took up the
consumerist cause with much greater effect and
conviction, and became the pioneers of the
movement. Pop art and pop culture refers to the
products of the mass media evolving in the late
1950s and 60s and also to the works of art that
draw upon popular culture - packaging, television,
advertisements, comic books, the cinema.
In America, Pop Art is often considered as a
counter-attack against Abstract Expressionism
because it used more figurative aspects in its
works.
Andy Warhol
1928-1987
American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker
• Andy was born in Pennsylvania to Ondrej (aka Andrej)
and Julia Warhola
Coca-Cola 3 Bottles, 1962
• In 1949, he graduated from Carnegie Institute of
Technology and then left for New York City to seek
work as a commercial artist
• By the mid-1950’s he had a flourishing career as a
commercial artist
• In 1962, Warhol gave his first one-man show. His art
represented images taken unchanged from the
commercial environment around him – comic strips,
Small Torn Campbell's Soup
movies, billboards, fast food, and grocery-store shelves.
Can (Pepper Pot), 1962
Warhol created images that became
cultural icons, or symbols, of 1960’s capturing
public figures such as Jackie Kennedy,
Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Mick Jagger.
Turquoise Marilyn , 1962
Jackie Kennedy
Liz Taylor
Mick Jagger
John Wayne, 1986
http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/marilyns.html
Red Elvis, 1962
Warhol used a mechanical silk screen process
to give his artwork a mass-produced look.
Silk screen is a stencil method of printing a
flat-color design through a piece of silk or other
fine cloth. The parts that are not to be printed
are blocked out with a piece of film. By using
this method, Warhol could print the same
image in different color combinations.
Warhol’s studio was known as “The Factory”
because a team of assistants helped him produce
his silk screens.
In Red Elvis, Warhol has repeated the face of Elvis
to resemble a sheet of postage stamps.
http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=UDVHB718ii
A&feature=fvwrel
In 1976, he did the Skulls, and
Hammer and Sickle series.
Throughout the late 70s and 80s,
a retrospective exhibition was
held, as Warhol began work on
the Reversals, Retrospectives, and
Shadows series.
Nine Multicolored Marilyns
(Reversal Series), 1976-1986
Andy Warhol, Shadows, 1978-79
The Myths series, Endangered Species series, and Ads series
followed through the early and mid 1980s.
The Myths Portfolio is one of Andy Warhol's most sought after
collections. Warhol's Myths collection contains ten screen prints
of iconic mythical figures, including Santa Claus, Mickey Mouse
and Superman.
Endangered Species series, 1983
African Elephant, 1983
pine barrens tree frog
Siberian tiger
Grevy's zebra
On 22 February 1987, a "day of medical infamy", as quoted by one biographer,
Andy Warhol died following complications from gall bladder surgery. He was 58
years old.
Roy Lichtenstein
1923-1997
• He was born in New York to Milton and Beatrice Werner Lichtenstein.
• Roy studied with Reginald Marsh at the Arts Students League in the
summer of 1939.
• In 1939 he graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in New York City.
• Roy served in WWII from 1943-46 and his job was to draw maps for troop
movements across Germany.
• In 1946 he received his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree and in 1949 earned
his Masters of Fine Arts from Ohio State University
• He taught at Ohio State University (‘46-’51),
New York State University (‘57-’60), and Rutgers University in
New Jersey (‘60-’63)
• In the 1950s, he used various techniques of Abstract Expressionism, did
figurative work, and like many of his generation, began employing pop
art images. But he was searching for a style.
• In 1961 he began to paint in the
style that became known as Pop
Art. It was at this time that he first
made use of devices which were
to become signatures in his work Benday dots, lettering and speech
balloons.
Bratatat!, 1962
• Roy based his paintings on comic
strips, it was a style that was fixed
in its format: black outlines, bold
colors and tones rendered by
Benday dots (a method of printing
tones in comic books from the
1950's and 60's. First developed
by Benjamin Day in 1878).
He took impersonal images from all sorts of commercial sources
including comic books, newspaper advertisements, and the yellow
pages and transformed them into large, hard line works.
He was also creating images of all kinds of highly advertised consumer
goods during this postwar era, such as a golf ball, a washing machine,
a sock.
• In 1962, he had a landmark exhibition at the Castelli Gallery that showed enlarged
depictions of advertisements and comic strip images. In fact, it was gallery owner
Leo Castelli who, as a major promoter of the contemporary art scene, was a key
person in launching his career. He was able to stop teaching and work as an artist
becoming a major participant in the Pop Art movement.
• Roy was inspired by Picasso, Mondrian, and Monet
Roy Lichtenstein,
Girl with Tear I, 1977
Girl with Tear III, 1977
Three musicians
by Fernand Leger
Stepping Out, 1978
Inspiration from Piet Mondrian
Roy Lichtenstein’s
Nonobjective II, 1964
Nonobjective I, 1964
Inspiration from Claude Monet
Roy Lichtenstein’s
Water Lilies with Cloud, 1992
Water Lilies with Japanese Bridge, 1992
Water Lily Pond with Reflections, 1992
In the 70’s and 80’s “Artist’s Studios” incorporated
elements of his previous work.
Interior with Waterlilies, 1991
Artist’s Studio No. 1, (Look Mickey)1973
Lichtenstein is best known for his paintings based on comic
strips, with their themes of
Violence & war
Passion,
Romance,
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7299118n
Science Fiction,
Wayne Thiebaud
1920 • Wayne was born in Mesa, Arizona and moved to Long Beach, California when he was only
six years old.
• In high school, he participated in theatrical productions creating multicolored
backdrops as well as special light effects.
• He enjoyed cartooning and illustration in high school and at sixteen was hired
by Walt Disney Studios in Los Angeles to work in the animation department.
• Thiebaud took commerical art courses at a small trade school and eventually became
and commercial artist. Thiebaud began working in the commercial arts in the late
1930s, primarily as a cartoonist and designer.
• In 1942, he joined the Air Force intending to become a pilot but was soon assigned
to the Special Services Dept. as an army artist and cartoonist.
• Upon his return to civilian life, he continued working as a commercial artist earning his
Bachelor’s degree in 1951 and Master’s in 1952 from Sacramento State College .
• After earning his M.A. in 1952, Thiebaud went on to teach at Sacramento City
College, eventually landing a position at the University of California, Davis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tACWZe6YolYArtist%20Wayne%20thiebaud%2087
In the 1960s, Thiebaud took a
leave of absence from UC Davis to
spend some time in New York,
where he met abstract
expressionist Willem de Kooning
and Franz Kline, along with thenemerging artists Robert
Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.
•
Around the Cake, 1962
• Impressed with their work,
Thiebaud began a series of small
paintings showing food displayed
in windows. Thiebaud’s early
paintings incorporated Abstract
Expressionism techniques: fast,
thick brushstrokes and vivid colors.
Boston Cream Pies, 1962
Three Machines, 1963
In the machines, Thiebaud has placed three gumball dispensers in
a blank space, outlining them with lines of contrasting color. This
technique intensifies the color, creating a vibrating “halo” effect.
• From 1957 to 1960, Wayne worked at establishing his own
personal style - The objects in his paintings were the focus; he
rendered them clearly, reflecting his interest in composition, light,
and the application of the pigment.
Pies, Pies, Pies, 1961
Cakes, 1963
• In
the 70’s, he started
painting landscapes and
cityscapes that featured
dramatic shifts in perspective
and multiple points of view.
His paintings show
complicated freeways,
roadways, automobiles,
skyscrapers and the ocean.
Urban Freeways, 1979
• In 1994, Thiebaud was
presented with the National
Medal of the Arts and his
works are shown in many
museums through the world.
Hill Street (Day City), 1981
Window Views, 1993