Origin of Pop Art

You may not know how to define what Pop Art is or how it appeared, but you've certainly come across some reference to the movement or work of Andy Warhol —the name most associated with this artistic movement.

And why did we decide to bring this matter to you? Because it was Pop Art that brought us closer to the art world and still resonates today in every aspect of contemporary culture, from Design to Marketing.

Pop Art is rooted in Neo-Dadaism and other artistic currents that questioned the very definition of Art. It emerged as a post-war reflection, reflecting the industrialism and growing consumerism of the 1950s and 60s.

How was “Folk Art” a Rebellion against the elitism of the fine arts, its central theme is the reality of the masses, focusing on topics such as celebrities, commercials and Everyday objects that illustrated the Popular culture.

Read on to learn more about Pop Art, the impact of this movement, and who were the main artists who made this bold style a work of art.

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O Independent Group in England

The Pop Art (Folk Art) movement began in the United Kingdom with a group of artists that were in London, known as the Independent Group (Independent Group) or IG.

IG was an avant-garde group of young artists, writers, and architects who wanted Revolutionize modernist culture dominant at that time. They were interested in the relationship between the Popular culture and the visual arts.

I Was a Rich Man's Plaything

In 1952, Eduardo Paolozzi, one of the co-founders of IG, gave a presentation to the group showing a series of collages with commercials, comic strips, and graphic images from North American magazines.

One of the collages from this presentation was I Was a Rich Man's Plaything by Paolozzi (1947), which includes the first use of the word “pop”, appearing in a cloud of smoke coming out of a revolver.

Inspired by this lecture, the group wanted create art that was more inclusive and that appealed to the masses.

The group organized the exhibition This is Tomorrow (1956) in which the iconic Hamilton collage was part of this exhibition “Just What Is It that Makes Today's Home So Different and So Appealing” being considered by many to be the official milestone of the beginning of the movement.

“[...]movies, science fiction, advertising, pop music. We are not averse to the standard of commercial culture like most intellectuals; we accept it as a fact, discuss it in detail, and consume it with enthusiasm.” Lawrence Alloway

It was Alloway who sponsored the movement, using the term “Pop Art” for the first time in the mid-1950s (sources may differ from that date, going from 1954 to 1958), where he described a new “Popular” art form.

Using Irony and parody, British artists focused on what American popular culture represented, its power to manipulate people's lifestyles, and exacerbated consumerism.

The main artists involved were Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, John McHale, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull. IG also included critics Lawrence Alloway and Rayner Banham.

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American pop art

In the USA, on the other hand, young artists were beginning to react against the basic ideas of abstract expressionism. They felt that abstract painting had become too elitist and wanted to bring art back to the real world, removing it from obscurity.

Thus, the new artistic style challenged traditional view of what art should be. There was also a feeling that what they learned at art school and what they saw in museums did not reflect in any way their surroundings or what they experienced on a daily basis.

These young artists wanted to completely blur the boundaries between classical art and mass culture, creating art from popular objects — such as Warhol's famous work with the image of a banana.

His main source of inspiration was Hollywood movies, commercials, product packaging, pop music, and comic books.

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Pop Art: United Kingdom x United States

If in the United Kingdom the Pop movement was fueled by popular American culture seen from a distance, in the USA the scenario was different: Americans were inspired by what they saw and experienced living within that culture.

Thus, there is a distinction between works from each side of the ocean:

• British artists observed American popular culture from afar, resulting in a more academic, creating works humorous and sentimentalist;
• Americans, immersed in their own pop culture media, were bombarded every day with the diversity of mass-produced images and created more works bold and aggressive.

Pop Art can be seen as one of the first manifestations of postmodernism.

Andy Warhol and the Pop Art Boom!

Although it appeared in the United Kingdom, it was in the USA that Pop Art really exploded. And the main name behind the fame of this movement is Andy Warhol.

Everyday objects and Hollywood celebrities such as the impressive and iconic Marilyn Monroe or the great king of rock Elvis Presley were frequent themes in Warhol's work. Thanks to him, great artists were immortalized in their works.

Warhol understood the commercial appeal and he also understood the fascination with celebrities. Together, these obsessions formed the perfect post-war cocktail for boost the economy.

From shopping to magazines, he had the acumen to capture the essence of American aesthetics: packaging products and people.

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The Pop Legacy

Pop Art has not only spread to various creative areas in different social strata, but it has remained relevant decade after decade, influencing our creative content to this day.

In the 80s, some post-modern artists worked under the banner of “Neo-Pop”. One of those artists, Jeff Koons, used features borrowed from Pop art, such as the inclusion of everyday objects in his works of art.

Today, Pop Art continues to impact stylists, designers, architects, and artists around the world, as does the new Japanese phenomenon: Takashi Murakami.

Murakami created the term “Superflat” to describe his art, referring to the graphic nature inspired by anime, pop culture, and consumerism.

In addition, we can see the influence of the pop legacy on street artists such as Banksy, who uses stencils and graphic design to achieve an aesthetic similar to Pop Art in his works.

As “Pop Art” almost perfectly mimics the aspects of society to which it reacts, its impact on world culture is, at this point, immeasurable.

Whether in design, fashion, paintings or architecture, Pop Art is here to stay.

Curiosities from the Pop World

Did you know that originally Pop Art was called advertising art? Below are some interesting facts about the movement:

• Andy Warhol designed the famous artwork for the debut album of The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground & Nico.
• It was Richard Hamilton who created the cover for White Album, from The Beatles.
• Pop Art's use of found objects and images dates back to the Dada movement in the early 20th century.
• Artists such as Jeff Koons and Claes Oldenburg satirized everyday objects, portraying them in monumental proportions. As Iconic pieces of Oldenburg Include giant ice cream spoons, clothespins, and others.
• The most expensive Warhol ever sold was Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), which he created in 1963. It was sold for $105 million in 2013.
• Andy Warhol was a very successful magazine illustrator and graphic designer; Ed Ruscha was also a graphic designer and James Rosenquist began his career as a billboard painter.

Critics and Critics

Pop Art was in part a rebellious cry against Status Quo.

As abstract expressionism was the predominant artistic movement of the decade, modernist critics were appalled by the use of such common and popular objects, apparently used without any aesthetic or critical sense.

And although the young Pop Art rebels used art as a critique of consumerism, they used precisely the elements they criticized, thus creating works that opposed consumption but fed on it.

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Features of Pop Art

It's easy to recognize Pop Art due to its vibrant colors and unique features such as the serial reproduction of the same theme.

Below are other important features that define Pop Art:

• Recognizable objects: use of popular images and products. Commercial items such as soup cans, traffic signs, newspapers, brand names, and logos;
• Characters or celebrities: photos of celebrities, fictional characters from comic books, advertisements, magazines, or newspaper photographs;
• Bright colors: outlines with lots of strong, bright, and even fluorescent colors. The use of primary colors such as red, yellow and blue predominates;
• Irony and satire: humor was one of the main components of Pop Art. Artists use the subject to make a statement about current events, mock fads, and challenge the Status Quo;
• Innovative techniques: engraving processes, serigraphy, lithography. They also used images from other movements and incorporated them into their works, altered or in their original form. This type of appropriation art was used to break the separation between elitist art and mass culture, mixing fine art images with advertising clippings;
• Mix media and collage: combination of materials and various types of media.

Top Artists

Artists who were exponents of this style include Jasper Johns, Roy Liechtenstein and Andy Warhol. Richard Hamilton, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist and Tom Wesselmann should also be mentioned.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol became the great representative of this movement. Trained in design, he worked as an illustrator in major magazines such as Vogue and New Yorker. Andy was always interested in elements of mass culture, as a result, everyday products reigned in his works - such as the famous soup cans Campbell.

Warhol understood the culture of fame, propaganda, and the media effect, and he dedicated his work and his life to that. Andy's studio, known as Factory, was a great meeting place for artistic celebrities of the time, which helped promote the effect of Andy Warhol's “brand”.

On the New York night scene, many people said: “You know you're having a good party when Andy Warhol shows up!”

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Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns is primarily known for his works depicting the American flag and other topics that refer to patriotism. Perhaps that's why, on several occasions, Johns won the title of “highest-paid” piece for a work by a living artist.

In addition to flags, his works also focus on elements such as letters, newspaper prints, numbers, textures, and maps. The innovations he found in screen printing, lithography, and engraving completely revolutionized this field of art.

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was well known for his use of comic books and pointillism in his work. His works also mixed advertisements, commercials, and everyday clippings.

In a meticulous manual process, he used perforated templates to replicate and often exaggerate the dot patterns generally used in printing images. Known as Ben-Day dots, this pattern became a characteristic element of his style.

James Rosenquist

James Rosenquist's works dive deep into cinematography and advertising, based on his history with sign painting. His works often explored the role of advertising in art and society.

Using techniques that were conventionally used to create commercial art, James combined elements of surrealism with fragmented images of advertisements, celebrities, popular objects, and even food—such as giant lipsticks or spaghetti.

Robert Rauschenberg

Rauschenberg was known for blurring the boundaries that distinguish paintings and sculptures. He became well known because of his work. Combines (1954-1964).

Some say that Robert anticipated the Pop Art movement and was described as a Neo-Dadaist.

Richard Hamilton

Hamilton was a professional draftsman and during his career he worked extensively with technical drawing, especially in the area of engineering.

His work was marked by pioneering, where Richard used collages to parody the contemporary culture of the 1950s and 60s. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, he was one of the founders of the famous movement of artists created in London called Independent Grup (KG).