Pop Art

Context: 1950s Consumerism

Click the image for an interactive lesson on 1950s Consumerism

Key Terms:

Mass (Popular) Culture is defined as cultural products that are both mass-produced and for mass audiences. Examples include mass-media entertainments—films, television programs, popular books, newspapers, magazines, popular music, leisure goods, household items, clothing, and mechanically-reproduced art.

Consumer Culture describes a lifestyle hyper-focused on spending money to buy material goods. It is often attributed to, but not limited to, the capitalist economy of the United States. During the 20th century, market goods came to dominate American life, and for the first time in history, consumerism had no practical limits. 

Commodification is the transformation of things such as goods, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals into objects of trade or commodities.

Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

Pop Art Movement

The Pop art movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mass-produced cultural objects.

One of its aims is to use images of popular (as opposed to elitist) culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony. These are just some of the pop art facts that you need to know to better understand this art movement.

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Pop Art Characteristics

Recognizable imagery: Pop art artists used images and icons from popular media and products. These graphic images include photos of celebrities, body parts, everyday objects like soup cans (Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol), water bottles, product labeling, mobile phones, cigarettes, furniture, road signs, and other items popular in the commercial world.

Bright colors: Pop art is characterized by vibrant, bright and saturated colors. By using these vibrant colors & bold outlines, pop artworks grab the attention of the audience instantly

Irony and satire: These were some of the main components of Pop art. Pop art artists use humor and irony to make a statement about current events.

Innovative techniques: To quickly reproduce images in large quantities, many pop art artists used printmaking processes. Andy Warhol used silkscreen printing process (ink is transferred onto paper or canvas through a mesh screen with a stencil). Roy Lichtenstein used lithography technique (printing from a stone or a metal plate with a smooth surface).

Mixed media and collage: Pop art artists often combined different materials and utilized a variety of different types of media. Some of the pop artists that used collage in their works are Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake. They combined disparate images, newspaper prints and paper cut-outs into a single canvas to create a new whole. For making pop art collage, even brand names and logos were added.

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Artist Spotlight

Pop Art Gallery

Andy Warhol Shot Marilyns

Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup Cans

Andy Warhol Cow Wallpaper

Roy Lichtenstein Crying Girl

Roy Lichtenstein Hot Dog

Roy Lichtenstein Spray

Keith Haring Untitled

Keith Haring Crack is Wack

Keith Haring Best Buddies

Richard Hamilton Lobby 

Richard Hamilton Lobby II

Richard Hamilton Self Portrait

Robert Indiana Love, 1967

Eduardo Paolozzi Meet the People

Robert Rauschenberg Estate

Jasper Johns Three Flags

Claes Oldenburg Spoonbridge and Cherry

Sir Peter Blake Sources of Pop Art 7

David Hockney Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)

Banksy Girl with a Balloon

Yayoi Kusama Tentacles

Takeshi Murakami Mr. dub And Bunny

Wayne Thiebaud Dessert Tray

Pop Art Portrait Project