Pop Art

Pop Art - a popular art movement with influence on the subculture

Pop Art, as a modern art movement that emerged in England in the mid-1950s and later as a counter-movement in America, has always occupied artists worldwide, whereby the term Pop Art stands for popular art, which still has a very special influence on this subculture. Popular pop art had its heyday in the 1960s. In pop art, everyday things and objects, but also comics and advertising materials are depicted in a recognisable and alienated way.

Pop Art

Illustration: Pop Art representative Peter Wolframm, see more popular Pop Art paintings here:  >> Discover now!

 

Ice Cream, Sex and Revolvers - Welcome to America

Motifs and depictions that are familiar from everyday life or from the media and advertising can be described as a characteristic feature of Pop Art. Even presented in an alienated way or taken out of context, these will always be recognisable as examples. The term anti-art found its critical advocacy thanks to the use of trivial objects in Pop Art. Radically, artists such as James Rosenquist in particular approached billboards with giant formats. Typical is the use of pure or primary colours, the emerging elements of which are clearly delineated with the help of black lines. We will return to well-known artists of this style and important works below.

The illustrative painting style of Pop Art is characterised by a high degree of colourfulness as an element of design. The origins of Pop Art can be found in popular mass & new media. Common techniques are painting, installations and collages, but also prints such as offset and screen printing. Important representatives of Pop Art were Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Jones and Andy Warhol. A selection of this popular art form, which had a very special influence on this subculture, can be found below.

Mixing politics and the world of commodities: Pop Art painting by comic icon Peter Wolframm: "Energy Part I", 100 x 100 cm, 2020

Two Britons as international pioneers of Pop Art

When it comes to Pop Art, Richard Hamilton is often cited as the founder of the art movement - although he himself always denied this. Nevertheless, his work "Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?" from 1956 contained all the characteristics of Pop Art for the first time.
In the same year, the work served as the motif for the "This is Tomorrow" exhibition poster, an event organised by the British Independent Group that addressed the new mass media and their relationship to contemporary art.
The author, art critic and curator Lawrence Reginald Alloway, who lived in the USA from the 1960s, came from this group. He is regarded as the creator of the terms "mass popular art" and "pop art" and held the view that art has its origins in popular culture.

Discover a selection of the Pop Art Edition available at Inspire Art here:

       

Pop Art as a movement: novel paintings with a message

Often described as a response to the intellectual abstract art form, Pop Art paintings deal with realistic subject elements, usually using achromatic and primary colours. Also common is the outlining with so-called outlines; based on comics. Poster-like, two-dimensional images are also common in Pop Art. The works reflect the social development in the USA, starting from the enthusiasm for the regained prosperity after the Second World War and for consumption, which later changed into a more critical basic attitude - triggered by events such as the Vietnam War, the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the race riots. The Pop paintings held up a mirror to the only seemingly perfect (consumer) society and exposed its weaknesses.

 

Pop Art images: a protagonist and his important work

Among the important artists of Pop Art are Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Jones, Robert Rauschenberg and - of course - Andy Warhol, who were inspired by the mass and new media of the time. Warhol, as a sought-after graphic designer, painted by hand in the beginning, but soon used silkscreen for images such as the iconic Pop Art multiple "Campbell's Soup Cans". This series consists of 32 almost congruent works, as a reflection of the 32 different flavours of the soup producer. He chose familiar motifs across the board as a basis, as well as any motifs that seemed "glamorous" to him or that held potential for reinterpretation. Two of the "Soup Cans" were presented in the groundbreaking exhibition "New Realists" at the Sidney Janis Gallery.

Andy Warhol: Pop Art Paintings with Radical Motifs

The subsequent series "Death and Disaster" was particularly radical, in which Andy Warhol took press photos of traffic accidents, catastrophes and execution devices ("Electric Chair") as models, subtly retouched them, thus aesthetically altering and reproducing the inherently gruesome. Art critics saw this as a revelation of the manipulative nature of the mass media and popular culture in general. Interestingly, this examination of misfortune and death met with direct approval on the Old Continent, whereas it initially met with rejection in the USA. One reason for this may be the long European tradition of depicting death in art and literature, for example in the form of monumental murals on cemetery walls and in sacred buildings ("dances of death").

Summary

Not only the unique pictorial language of Pop Art, but also the thematic examination of it, allow this art style to be definitively defined. Particularly intense colours as well as predominantly strong subjects, but also the recurring art production inspired by mass products are the most influential characteristics of Pop Art. The concept of Pop Art is essentially that art can emanate from any source and consequently there are no hierarchies in art and culture. The protagonists of Pop Art were the first to sustainably recognise that an approach to a particular subject matter is always multidimensional. "Everything is always connected." These connections became an expressive feature in the world of advertising, cartoons and popular images in general.

Learn more about Pop Art paintings, important representatives of this genre and the works of the collective of Inspire Art: New Masters of Consumption can be found in a selected choice of high-quality Pop Art paintings. Affordable consumer art that you can order from Inspire-ART is presented below. Be inspired by Pop Art art with key American stimuli and discover your favourite! If you are also interested in the closely related topic of street art, you can find exciting background information by clicking on the link above.

Unique pieces of a popular art movement - Pop Art 

Pop Art painting  Pop Art picture  Modern Pop Art  Pop Art Acrylic painting 
Pop Art Painting  PopArt on Canvas 119,- Eur Modern PopArt 350,- Eur Popart in XXL Size 2600,- Eur

 

Viewed