Pop art is one of the major art movements of the 20th century. The coinage of the term Pop Art is often credited to British art critic/curator. The term first appeared in Britain during the 1950’s and referred to the interest of a number of artists in the images of mass media, advertising, comics and consumer products.
The 1950’s were a period of optimism in Britain following the end of war-time rationing, and a consumer boom took place. Influenced by the art seen in Eduardo Paolozzi's 1953 exhibition “Parallel between Art and Life” at the Institute for Contemporary Arts, and by American artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, British artists such as Richard Hamilton and the Independent Group aimed at broadening taste into more popular, less academic art. Hamilton helped organize the 'Man, Machine, and Motion' exhibition in 1955, and 'This is Tomorrow' with its landmark image “Just What is it that makes today's home so different, so appealing?” (1956). Pop Art therefore coincided with the youth and pop music phenomenon of the 1950’s and '60s’, and became very much a part of the image of fashionable, 'swinging' London. Peter Blake. The Pop Art movement sprung up as a result of a fascination with popular culture, and affluent post war society. Pop Art celebrated popular culture, simple every day objects such as soup cans, soap, washing powder, pop bottles, and comic strips, and in effect, turned commonplace items into icons. Pop Art encompasses definitions of the popular, the expendable, the mass produced, the young, witty and sexy, and the glamorous.
Andy Warhol is Pop Art’s most notable artist in that he brought the art form to the public eye. He created numerous screen prints of Coke bottles, Campbell’s soup tins, and film stars such as Marilyn Monroe. This in effect contributed to the iconography of the 20th century. Much of pop art is considered very academic, as the unconventional organizational practices used often make it difficult for some to comprehend. Pop art and minimalism are considered to be the last modern art movements and thus the precursors to postmodern art, or some of the earliest examples of Postmodern art.
Pop Art In America
American pop art has its own origins separate from British pop art. During the 1920s American artists Gerald Murphy, Charles Demuth and Struart Davis created paintings prefiguring the pop art movement that contained pop culture imagery such as mundane objects culled from American commercial products and advertising design. In America, Pop Art is often considered as a counter-attack against Abstract Expressionism because it used more figurative aspects in its works. It was also related closely to Dada, an earlier movement (largely French) that poked fun at the highbrow and serious nature of the art world and also used everyday objects and mundane subjects. Warhol's rows of Campbell's tins of tomato soup are equivalent to Marcel Duchamp’s bicycles and urinals placed in galleries.
Pop Art In Japan
Pop art in Japan is unique and identifiable as Japanese because of the regular subjects and styles. Many Japanese pop artists take inspiration largely from anime, and sometimes ukiyo-e and traditional Japanese art. The best-known pop artist currently in Japan is Takashi Murakami, whose group of artists, Kaikai Kiki is world-renowned for their own mass-produced but highly abstract and unique superflat art movement, a surrealist, post-modern movement whose inspiration comes mainly from anime and Japanese street culture, is mostly aimed at youth in Japan, and has made a large cultural impact. Some artists in Japan, like Yoshitomo Nara, are famous for their graffiti-inspired art, and some, such as Murakami, are famous for mass-produced plastic or polymer figurines. Many pop artists in Japan use surreal or obscene, shocking images in their art, taken from Japanese hentai. This element of the art catches the eye of viewers young and old, and is extremely thought-provoking, but is not taken as offensive in Japan. A common metaphor used in Japanese pop art is the innocence and vulnerability of children and youth.
Andy Warhol - One Of The Pop Art Artist
Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 - February 22, 1987), better known as Andy Warhol, was an American artist who was a central figure in the movement known as Pop Art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, an avant-garde filmmaker, a record producer, an author, and a public figure known for his presence in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy aristocrats. A controversial figure during his lifetime (his work was often derided by critics as a hoax or "put-on"). Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books and documentary films since his death in 1987.
It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of famous American products such as "Campbell's Soup Can" from the Campbell Soup Company and Coca-cola, as well as paintings of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory", his studio during these years and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He switched to silkscreen prints which he produced serially, seeking not only to make art of mass-produced items but to mass produce the art itself. By minimizing the role of his own hand in the production of his work and declaring that he wanted to be "a machine", Warhol sparked a revolution in art. His work quickly became very controversial and popular. His most famous work is the Campbell’s Soup Cans”. Warhol's work from this period revolves around American Pop (Popular) culture. He painted dollar bills, celebrities, brand name products and images from newspaper clippings - many of the latter were iconic images from headline stories of the decade (e.g. photographs of mushroom clouds, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters). His subjects were instantly recognizable and often had a mass appeal. This aspect interested him most, and it unifies his paintings from this period.
Below are some of the painting
For detail information, you can visit the link below for the Pop Art Gallery:
http://www.warhol.org/default.asp
http://www.warhol.org/default.asp
