Pop Art Movement

Pop Art

Pop Art emerged as a movement in New York in the late 1950’s. However in the early 1950’s it had already originated in Britain under a group of artists who showed great interest in daily imagery shown in advertising, cartoons and news. Special attention was given to machinery that reproduced art such as photographs and prints.

The movement of Pop Art aimed to “blur boundaries between high art and low or popular culture”. The whole idea behind Pop Art was that it had no limit of production. To these artists it is a matter of how and where they get their inspiration. According to some experts this attitude was brought about because of the way they reacted to abstract expressionism.

In the 1960’s pop art gained progress in the United States. It is now mainly linked to the work of New York artists like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and Claes Oldenburg. Nevertheless these artists were part of a more extraordinary happening in different parts of the world such as the beginning of Nouveau Realisme which is the equivalent of pop art in French.

New Generations of artists are till this day influenced by the pop art movement. Symbols and objects became useful subject matter in art and the approval and use of everyday culture broadened possibilities.

Andy Warhol - Marilyn Monroe

Reference: Steven Henry Madoff, S.H.M, 1997, Pop Art:  A critical History, 2nd edition, University of California Press