Pop Art
"The term first appeared in Britain during the 1950s and referred to the
interest of a number of artists in the images of mass media,
advertising, comics and consumer products. The 1950s 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 1950s and '60s, and became very much a part
of the image of fashionable, 'swinging' London. Peter Blake, for
example, designed album covers for Elvis Presley and the Beatles and
placed film stars such as Brigitte Bardot in his pictures in the same
way that Warhol was immortalizing Marilyn Monroe in the USA. Pop art
came in a number of waves, but all its adherents - Joe Trilson, Richard
Smith, Peter Phillips, David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj - shared some
interest in the urban, consumer, modern experience."
From "The Bulfinch Guide to Art History"
Further reading on Pop Art:
- Pop Art (Phaidon Colour Library), by Jamie James
- Pop Art: A Critical History (The Documents of Twentieth-Century
Art) , by Steven Henry Madoff.
- Pop-Art Postcard Book
- Popism: The Warhol '60s, by Andy Warhol
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