Pop art
Pop art is the movement that took its subjects from popular and commercial culture, advertising, comics, packaging, film stars and consumer goods, and its methods from mass production; it began in London in the mid-1950s and peaked in New York in the 1960s with Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
It started in Britain. The Independent Group, a circle of artists, architects and critics who met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in the early 1950s, discussed American advertising, science fiction and design as seriously as fine art. Eduardo Paolozzi made collages from American magazines, and Richard Hamilton's small collage Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? was made for the exhibition This Is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel in 1956. The critic Lawrence Alloway is usually credited with the term. A second wave, with Peter Blake as an elder figure, came out of the Royal College of Art around 1961: David Hockney, Derek Boshier, Peter Phillips, Allen Jones and Patrick Caulfield.
In New York, Jasper Johns's flags and targets and Robert Rauschenberg's combines had already brought everyday images back into painting by the late 1950s. Pop proper arrived almost at once in 1961 and 1962: Roy Lichtenstein's comic-strip frames in Ben-Day dots, Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, shown in Los Angeles in July 1962, Claes Oldenburg's soft sculptures, Tom Wesselmann's Great American Nudes, James Rosenquist's billboard-scale paintings. Warhol's silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and the Coca-Cola bottle made him the movement's face. In Paris the Nouveau Réalistes, Yves Klein, Arman, César, Christo, Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle, were working with real objects at the same moment, and in Germany Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter answered with what they called Capitalist Realism in 1963.
At a glance
- When
- mid-1950s to early 1970s
- Where
- London and New York
- Leading artists
- Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter Blake, David Hockney
Characteristics of Pop art
- Popular imagery
- Advertising, comics, celebrities, packaging and the news.
- Commercial techniques
- Screenprinting, Ben-Day dots and flat, bright colour borrowed from print.
- Repetition
- The same image multiplied, as goods are on a shelf.
- Irony
- A celebration and a critique of consumer culture at once.
- The hidden hand
- Hard edges and flat colour, with little visible brushwork.
- Prints and multiples
- Large editions that made Pop collectable far beyond the gallery.
Pop art artists
Every artist below has a page on this site, with a short biography and what a valuation of their work turns on.
British Pop
- Richard HamiltonMade the collage that defined Pop in 1956, and designed the Beatles' White Album.
- Eduardo PaolozziMade the first Pop collage in 1947, then spent decades welding machines that look like men.
- Peter BlakeGodfather of British Pop, and the man who assembled the crowd on the Sgt. Pepper sleeve.
- David HockneySixty years of printmaking across more media than almost any of his contemporaries — which is exactly what makes his market hard to read.
- Patrick CaulfieldFlat colour, black outlines, and restaurant interiors nobody is sitting in.
- Allen JonesBritish Pop artist of legs, high heels and fetish sculpture, who turned furniture into figures.
- Joe TilsonBritish Pop artist who worked as a carpenter first, and never stopped making objects rather than pictures.
American Pop
- Andy WarholThe most reproduced artist of the century, which is exactly why the sheet in front of you has to prove what it is.
- Roy LichtensteinPainted comic panels by hand, Ben-Day dots and all, and made them enormous.
- Tom WesselmannGreat American Nudes with no faces, assembled from advertising, real objects and flat colour.
- James RosenquistPainted billboards over Times Square, then made paintings that work the same way — too close to read.
- Robert IndianaMade LOVE, lost control of it, and spent his last decades alone on an island in Maine.
- Jim DineHearts, bathrobes, tools and Pinocchio, from a Pop artist who never accepted the label.
- Ed RuschaPainted single words in a flat Los Angeles light, and photographed every building on the Sunset Strip.
- Wayne ThiebaudPainted cakes, pies and gumball machines in paint as thick as icing, and refused to be called a Pop artist.
Forerunners
Nouveau Réalisme
- Yves KleinPatented his own blue, painted with fire and with bodies, and did it all in seven years.
- ArmanNouveau Realiste who sliced, burned, smashed and embedded the objects everyone else was buying.
- CesarCompressed cars, expanded polyurethane, and a giant bronze thumb.
- ChristoWrapped a bridge, a Reichstag, a coastline and an island, and sold drawings to pay for it.
- Jean TinguelyBuilt machines out of scrap that do nothing, badly, and sometimes destroy themselves.
- Niki de Saint PhalleShot at her own paintings with a rifle, then spent thirty years making enormous joyful women.
Europe and Latin America
- Sigmar PolkeCo-invented Capitalist Realism, painted on printed fabric, and used materials that keep changing.
- Gerhard RichterBlurred photographs and squeegeed abstraction, made by the same man for sixty years, on purpose.
- Alain JacquetBlew the printing dot up until the picture dissolved, starting with a picnic on the grass.
- Gerard FromangerPainted the street in flat silhouette and pure colour, from May 1968 onwards.
- Claudio TozziBrazilian Pop of the dictatorship years — comic panels, astronauts and Che, in flat hard colour.
After Pop
- Keith HaringAmong the most counterfeited artists of the century, and there is no longer anybody issuing opinions.
- Jeff KoonsVacuum cleaners in vitrines, basketballs in tanks, and a stainless-steel rabbit with no face.
- Takashi MurakamiOffset editions of three hundred are described as limited artworks daily, and they are not the same thing as a painting.
Famous Pop art works
- Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?Richard Hamilton, 1956, Kunsthalle Tübingen
- Campbell's Soup CansAndy Warhol, 1962, Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Marilyn DiptychAndy Warhol, 1962, Tate, London
- Whaam!Roy Lichtenstein, 1963, Tate, London
- F-111James Rosenquist, 1964–65, Museum of Modern Art, New York
- A Bigger SplashDavid Hockney, 1967, Tate, London
What a valuation turns on
Pop art was made to be reproduced, and its market shows it. Most of what comes up are prints, screenprints, lithographs and multiples, issued in editions of tens or hundreds, and the questions are those of any edition: is it signed and numbered, which edition is it, is it a proof or a later unauthorised printing, and what condition is it in? Warhol is the clearest case: the Sunday B. Morning prints, stamped 'fill in your own signature' on the back, are not by Warhol, and are valued as what they are.
For paintings and unique works, the authentication picture has changed. The Andy Warhol Foundation dissolved its authentication board in 2012, and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation stopped giving opinions in 2011; both now publish catalogues raisonnés, and inclusion in them is the main test. For the British Pop artists, the catalogues of their prints are the first references.
Common questions
What is Pop art?
Pop art is a movement that began in Britain in the mid-1950s and in the United States around 1960, which took its imagery from popular and commercial culture, such as advertising, comics, celebrities and consumer goods, and often its methods from commercial printing.
Who are the most famous Pop artists?
Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Tom Wesselmann, James Rosenquist, Robert Indiana and Jim Dine in America; Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter Blake, David Hockney, Patrick Caulfield and Allen Jones in Britain.
When did Pop art start?
In London in the mid-1950s, with the Independent Group and Richard Hamilton's collage for This Is Tomorrow in 1956. American Pop appeared in New York in 1961 and 1962 and was at its height through the 1960s.
Is Pop art British or American?
Both. It began in Britain, where the term was coined and the first Pop works were made in the 1950s, but the best-known Pop artists, Warhol and Lichtenstein, are American, and New York became its centre in the 1960s.
Is my Warhol print real?
Check for a signature, an edition number and the printer's or publisher's stamp on the back, and compare the work with the catalogue raisonné of Warhol's prints. Sunday B. Morning prints and many posters are not by Warhol. Send photographs of the front, the back and the signature for a free, confidential opinion.
