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Pop art is an art form that appeared post-WW2 in the mid-1950s in the UK and the late-1950s in  America that blurred the lines between high and low art to challenge the hierarchy of art (https://www.theartstory.org/movement/pop-art/). Art began to portray commonplace objects in unique mediums and developed art forms that allowed for mass production of art pieces. This challenged how art was portrayed and made it a commodity that could be mass produced and sold rather than unique, one-of-a-kind pieces. It has become one of the most recognizable art forms (https://www.theartstory.org/movement/pop-art/).

Characteristics of pop art include imagery from popular media and products such as foods and celebrities. They use very bright colors or flat imagery as seen in newspapers and comic books along with that style. There was lots of imagery of fictional characters, celebrities, comic books, advertisements, and fan magazines which was very unique for the time.

Additionally, sculpture had new, unique properties including creating new sculptures out of new mediums, but they are still of everyday objects (https://www.thoughtco.com/pop-art-art-history-183310).

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Pop Art was a reaction to Abstract Expressionists. While Abstract Expressionists searched for trauma in the soul, pop artists looked at the same trauma and criticized the current-day issues by and painted objects. Many of the artists disliked that abstract expressionists did not create shapes and wanted to bring form back to art. (https://www.theartstory.org/movement/pop-art/)

Additionally, pop art was influenced by the post-WW2 economic boom when consumerism was very important. Much artwork in this time was of highly sold commodities such as goods and people. With the boom of capitalism and an economic boom, they began to celebrate commonplace objects to challenge the hierarchy of art in favor of mass-manufactured items. (https://www.theartstory.org/movement/pop-art/)

The economic boom was heavily because of the world's change from being highly discouraging of trade, to highly encouraging it. The trading of goods between different countries also allowed for greater exchange of ideas and movements, which happened with the Pop Art movement from the UK to the USA.

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Pop art was heavily influenced by the Neo-Dada and Dada movements. Neo-Dada and Dada art heavily relied on 'ready-made' art pieces and arranging them in different ways to depict the way the artist viewed the world. Dada influenced the Pop Art movement through using consumerist, mass-produced goods in exhibition. Neo-Dada began returning to imagery and depicting ‘lower value’ goods. (https://www.thoughtco.com/pop-art-art-history-183310)

Pop Art used many 'low' consumer art and mass-produced it. The mass-produced idea turned from a consumerist way, to an art form, which was controversial, much like the use of ready-mades in the Neo-Dada movement.

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While Richard Hamilton is less known for his pop art, he is arguably considered the father of pop art. His work paved the way for the most famous pop artists and defined its aims and ideals. Pop art became a way of life for him.

From the UK, at the time, the prevailing view was that art was separate from commerce. Hamilton gave permission to artists to consider every visual thing as a muse for art. He opened up the commercial sector to be considered for art as well.

His art, though ironic, analyzed the psychology of things or people in the commercial sector. He constantly poked fun on the commercialism of his day.

One of his works includes a collage of photos of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn died the same year as Hamilton’s wife, which made people think this work was a coping mechanism. He had several photos of her and had most crossed out. Marilyn was known for crossing out photos of her she did not like. The painting explores perfectionism and Monroe seeking to erase herself completely from photos she did not live.

The second one, pictured above, is a series of news clippings. The art has almost nude Adam and Eve and surrounds them with material goods in the world of consumerism. The middle-class English at the time were struggling post WW2. While this painting is not critiquing the upper way of life this picture depicts, it pokes fun at the reliance of the average person on mass-produced, consumerist goods.

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/hamilton-richard/

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Andy Warhol is arguably the most famous pop artist. His art often critiqued and expressed sorrow at the current state of the world, especially with their consumerist habits (https://www.theartstory.org/artist/warhol-andy/).

The beginning of his famous art began with the picture shown, the Campbell soup can. He was told by his mentor to paint an everyday object, so he painted a Campbell soup can, something he ate every day for 20 years. It became wildly popular and many people wanted it. Thus, he started mass-producing it, turning mass-production into an art form (https://www.thoughtco.com/andy-warhol-profile-1779483). He mass-produced his art through a process called silkscreening. Silkscreening is a “stencil process involved transferring an image on to a porous screen, then applying paint or ink with a rubber squeegee. This marked another means of painting while removing traces of his hand; like the stencil processes he had used to create the Campbell's Soup Can pictures, this also enabled him to repeat the motif multiple times across the same image, producing a serial image suggestive of mass production. Often, he would first set down a layer of colors which would complement the stenciled image after it was applied.” (https://www.theartstory.org/artist/warhol-andy)

Another one of his famous art pieces is over Marilyn Monroe, as shown in the post on Influences: Economic Boom. It depicts her in several colors and comments on how people turn into icons to be consumed, like things sold in the supermarket.

Andy Warhol directly challenged the idea of low vs high art forms. His work was extremely controversial because it made low art a commodity and be considered an art form.

Later in life, Andy Warhol focused on film. His film was largely unpopular early in his life but has recently been considered beautiful and art. He focused on filming the same scene from different angles. (https://www.theartstory.org/artist/warhol-andy/)

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Claes Oldenburg is known as the king of pop sculpture. He is known for taking normal, everyday, mundane objects, such as the clothespin in this picture, and putting them into a massive scale. (https://www.theartstory.org/artist/oldenburg-claes/) Additionally, they were often made out of unique materials that did not pertain to the objects themselves. For example, the clothespin is made out of steel, which is normally made out of wood. (://oldenburgvanbruggen.com/largescaleprojects/lsp.htm)

Another cool fact about him is he would draw inspiration from how the real object was created. For example, his sculpture of a cake was made with a layering method, similar to how a normal cake is made by layering different parts together to create the finished product. (https://www.theartstory.org/artist/oldenburg-claes/)

Oldenburg’s falls in line with pop culture because of how his focus was on the mundane items of life and commodities. He turned a ‘low’ art into something that was important. A clothespin is not considered important enough to be depicted in art, yet Oldenburg created the clothespin on a massive scale, drawing much attention to itself.

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Eduardo Paolozzi: Another Pop Art Father

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Eduardo Paolozzi: Another Pop Art Father

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Paolozzi is from Scotland and considered one of the pioneers of the Pop Art movement. His work was key to the movement's early development. His artwork involved multiple medias including sculpture, printmaking, collage, and ceramics.

Paolozzi was influenced by the Surrealism art movement and the Dada movement. This was crucial to the development of the Pop Art movement. He also incorporated mass media, consumer culture, and technology into his artwork which became the hallmark of the pop art movement.

Paolozzi is most famous for his work "I was a Rich Man's Plaything" collage. He combined several elements of collage by taking several consumerist cultural items from magazines and putting it together. As shown in the picture, a pin-up girl, a Coca-Cola logo, a gun, and a Tootsie Roll wrapper can be seen in the artwork. Using collage as his medium, he was making a statement on how American consumer culture has influenced post-war Britain as well as how much mass media and consumerism has impacted society.

Paolozzi is most famous for his collages; however, he also created many sculptures and printmaking which were also well known.

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/paolozzi-eduardo/

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Roy Lichtenstein was a highly controversial during his time. He was often accused of copying other artists' artwork. His art is highly recognizable as it uses a comic strip medium and style and has become the fact of the pop art movement. His work has become one of the most recognizable.

Lichtenstein is famous for taking existing comic strips and zooming into the most essential part and condensing the words and changing some of the style to portray a message.

He emphasized on the method of mechanical reproduction through Ben-day dots. These are small, closely spaced, colored dots are combined to create contrasting colors. They are often exaggerated in his art pieces and defined his style. He would take a reproduced panel from a cartoon, trace it on a canvas by projecting it on a screen and then filling the image with bold colors and stenciled Ben-Day dots.

His most famous art piece is considered "Whaam", which is a diptych with a fighter jet firing a missile and an explosion in the background. It the picture depicted in this post.

theartstory.org/artist/lichtenstein-roy/