POP Art

2 Pop Art was born in Britain in the 1950s. But it was in the U.S. that it really excelled.

British Pop Art EDUARDO PAOLOZZI 'I was a Rich Man's Plaything' 1947 (collage)

Pop Art was the art of popular culture. Pop artists seemingly embraced the post-WWII manufacturing and media boom of the 1950's and 1960's. It coincided with the world interest in pop music and youth culture, represented by Elvis and the Beatles. Pop Art was bright, young, and fun. It included different styles of painting and sculpture from various countries, but what they all had in common was an interest in mass-media, mass- production and mass-culture.

The Pop Art movement used common everyday objects to symbolize popular culture. Most were images in advertising, television, product packaging, celebrities, and comic strips. Pop artists put art into terms of everyday, contemporary life. It also helped to decrease the gap between fine art and commercial art methods.

Andy Warhol grew up in Pittsburg,with his two older brothers and his parents, both of whom had emigrated from Czechoslovakia. Even as a young boy, Warhol liked to draw, color, and cut and paste pictures. His mother, who was also artistic, would encourage him by giving him a chocolate bar every time he finished a page in his coloring book.

Elementary school was traumatic for Warhol, especially once he contracted St. Vitus' dance ( a disease that attacks the nervous system and makes someone shake uncontrollably). Warhol missed a lot of school with long periods of bed rest. He also developed large, pink blotches on his skin, also from St. Vitus' dance, which didn't help his self-esteem or acceptance by other students.

During high school, Warhol took art classes both at school and at the Carnegie Museum. He was somewhat of an outcast because he was quiet, could always be found with a sketchbook in his hands, and had shockingly pale skin and blonde hair. Warhol also loved to go to movies and started a collection of celebrity memorabilia, especially autographed photos. Warhol graduated from high school and then went to Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he graduated in 1949 with a major in pictorial design.

Around 1960, Warhol had decided to make a name for himself in Pop Art. Warhol began with Coke bottles and comic strips. then he soon moved on to money and soup cans.

Andy Warhol, a young commercial artist: magazine illustrator and graphic designer, understood shopping and the allure of celebrity. Together these Post-World War II obsessions drove the economy. From malls and to People Magazine, Warhol captured an authentic American obsession: packaging products and people. Public display ruled and everyone wanted his/her own fifteen minutes of fame.

Andy Warhol

As a boy growing up on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Lichtenstein had a passion for both science and comic books. In his teens, he became interested in art. He took watercolor classes at Parsons School of Design in 1937, and he took classes at the Art Students League in 1940, studying with American realist painter Reginald Marsh. Roy Lichtenstein

Following his graduation from the Franklin School for Boys in Manhattan in 1940, Lichtenstein attended The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. His college studies were interrupted in 1943, when he was drafted and sent to Europe for World War II. After his wartime service, Lichtenstein returned to Ohio State in 1946 to finish his undergraduate degree and master's degree in fine arts. He briefly taught at Ohio State before moving to Cleveland and working as a window-display designer for a department store, an industrial designer and a commercial-art instructor.

In 1961, Lichtenstein began his first pop art of cartoon images and techniques derived from the appearance of comics in the newspaper. His work was both a commentary on American popular culture and a reaction to the recent success of Abstract Expressionist painting by artists like Jackson Pollock. Rather than emphasize his painting process and his own inner, emotional life in his art, he mimicked the stencil process, that imitated the mechanical printing used for commercial art.

Roy Lichtenstein’s "Whaam" 1963 You can tell Lichtenstein's paintings because he made dots in the background, and he has thought bubbles in most of his paintings.

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Robert Indiana was born Robert Clark in Indiana.

He once referred to "Robert Indiana" as his "nom de brush," and said it was the only name by which he cared to go. The adopted name suits him, as his tumultuous childhood was spent moving frequently. Indiana says he lived in more than 20 different homes within the Hoosier State before the age of 17. He also served in the United States Army for three years, before attending the Art Institute of Chicago, the the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Edinburgh College of Art.

Indiana moved to New York in 1956 and quickly earned a name for himself with his hard-edge painting style and sculptural assemblages and became an early leader in the Pop Art movement.

Indiana's best known image is silk- screened print of the word love.

Following the popularity of the Abstract Expressionists, Pop's reintroduction of recognizable images was a major shift for the direction of modernism. The subject matter became far from traditional "high art" themes of morality, mythology, and classic history; instead, Pop artists celebrated everyday objects. By doing this Pop Artists tried to elevate popular culture to the level of fine art. Pop art has become one of the most recognizable styles of modern art.

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