Independent Artists Of America

Independent Artists Of America

A brief history of pop art in Britain and America

After the Second World War followed a huge transitional period across Europe and the United States. Major reconstruction was the order of the day throughout Europe and slowly growing prosperity and abundance was enjoyed by the population in these territories. It was the dawn of a new era, but it was not until the 1960s that the emerging "consumer" society gave rise to a demand for goods that were simply impossible to achieve so far.

British pop art can trace its roots back to mid 1950. A small independent group comprising notable artists in this time, together with critics in the world of fine art exhibition held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1956. This exhibition has been a focus on the topic of cheap consumer products and their role in modern life. Believe it or not then the show was a big step forward in the world of art and a huge departure from what had gone before. Old critic, Lawrence Alloway (1926-1992) hailed it as the birth of something new and was baptized in 1958 This distinctive style of art as "Pop Art".

Key figures of British pop art scene that followed were Richard Hamilton (b. 1922) whose work represents cars, pin-up models and electric appliances, among others. Peter Blake (b. 1932), however, focused on comics and pop singers while the magazine collector Eduardo Paolozzi (b. 1924) produced impressive collage prints by recycling and integrating old advertisement material with images of comic.

As for the United States during the 1950s the art world was dominated by "abstract expressionism". It was not until the 1960s when critics American art and artists alike began to embrace the pop art and give this new style of art of his own inimitable American "take." In 1962, an exhibition entitled "New Realists" was held at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York. This was pioneered in America, especially because the exhibition featured work artists such as Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929), Jim Dine (1935) and James Rosenquist (b. 1933). Of these, Warhol, Lichtenstein and Oldenburg went on to become key figures in the pop art world. Warhol became a household name.

In fact, Warhol's fame increased in 1962 after of his "Campbell Soup Cans" work was produced and offered in separate works - firstly as the individual "cans" and then the same cans aligned in immaculate rows. Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, possibly the largest of the 60 female icons of the era, were also given the treatment, "Warhol" in which silk-screened their images, altered the colors and reproduced in repeating patterns.

Roy Lichtenstein was very much a "comic artist and produced the masses of the works using images of the comics. Beginning in 1960, he painted very inflated images of comic strip frames formed by the colored dots paper newspaper. During the same year, Oldenburg was devoted to carve its own niche in the pop art world, the creation of large painted plaster sculptures of sandwiches and cakes! These were accompanied by large plastic devices softened so they can give a distinctive "droop". This was designed to explore the nature of consumer culture "that was sweeping the nations on both sides of the Atlantic.

With mass consumer market on the rise at an alarming rate (and seemingly no end in sight) "Pop Art" remains very much alive and is perhaps even more poignant and inspiring today as it was even in mid-twentieth century.

About the Author

Sam Tennyson runs a successful online pop art business at Modern Canvs Art

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Independent Artists Of America

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