Art History- Pop Art + Andy Warhol

Romina Lizier

HISTORICAL CONTEXT: Place + Time

• Began Mid- 1950’s, Britain

• Idea: group of young subversive artists, called themselves “Independent Group“ (IG), were part of the Institute of Contemporary Art in London

• Movement arrived in the USA

• The term "Pop Art" was officially introduced in December 1962; the Occasion was a "Symposium on Pop Art" organized by the Museum of Modern Art

• 1970: “Once the Postmodernist generation looked hard and long into the

mirror, self-doubt took over and the party atmosphere of Pop Art faded away.“(Gersh-Nesic, Art History 101 Basics)

Related World Events

• “Swinging Sixties“ in Britain.• Back then: movies, television, newspapers and

magazines brought energy among young people born during the Post-World War II generation.

• Rebelling against abstract art.• Wanted to express their optimism after so much

hardship (war) youthful visual language. • Pop Art celebrated the Generation of Shopping.

Pop Art Characteristics• Hardedges, representational art • Using mundane reality, irony and parody to “move on“ from

the symbolism and "painterly looseness" of Abstract Expressionism.

• Appreciates popular culture, or “material culture.” It does not critique materialism and consumerism.

• Recognizable imagery, drawn from popular media and products.

• Bright colors.• Influenced by comic books and newspaper photographs.,

Images of celebrities or fictional characters, what was popular.• In sculpture, an innovative use of media.

MAIN POP ARTISTS

The Starters

1- Richard Hamilton- 1992 (Britain)

• Born February 1992 in Pimlico, London, England

• After the war Royal Academy Schools but was later expelled.

• After two years at the Slade School of Art, London, began exhibiting his work at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)

• His 1955 exhibition Man, Machine and Motion considered by critics and historians “earliest works of pop art“.

• Awarded: William and Noma Copley Foundation Award, the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize, the Talents Prize International, the Leone in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the Arnold Bode Prize, and the Max Beckmann for painting.

• Died September 2011

2- R. B. Kitaj- 1932(US)

• Ronald. B Kitaj (ki-TIE) born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, USA.

• United States Army for two years, then moved to England to study Fine Arts.

• Settled in England, and through the 1960s taught at the Ealing Art College, the Camberwell School of Art and the Slade School of Art, and University of California, Berkeley in 1968.

• First solo exhibition at Marlborough New London Galley (1963).

• Had significant influence on British Pop Art, works resembled collages, but eschewing most abstraction and modernism.

• Died October 2007, USA.

Famous3- Roy Liechtenstein

• Born in New York City on October 27, 1923.• Passion for both science and comic books..• Took watercolor classes at Parsons School of Design in 1937,

and he took classes at the Art Students League in 1940, studying with American realist painter Reginald Marsh.

• His works featured cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and advertisements for food and household products.

• Became known for his deadpan humor and his slyly subversive way of building a signature body of work from mass-reproduced images.

• By the mid-1960s, he was nationally known and recognized as a leader in the Pop Art

• Died September 29, 1997, New York

VISUAL EXAMPLES

Richard Hamilton’s: 1956 collage‘Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?'

Robert Indiana’s: Love (1966)

Roy Lichtenstein’s: “As I Opened Fire“, 1964-1966

Tom Wesselman’s: “The Smoker“, 1971

Mel Ramos:Martini Miss, 2004

Rosalyn Drexler:Home-movies, 1963

ANDY WARHOL

The Pop Art Master

Life and Work

• Warhol was an US painter, film-maker and author, and a leading figure in the Pop Art movement.

• Andrew Warhola was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1928.

• Moved to New York, center of art and Pop culture. • Between 1945 and 1949 Warhol studied at the Carnegie

Institute of Technology. • He worked as a commercial artist for magazines and

also designed advertising and window displays.• 1960s began to experiment with reproductions based

on advertisements, newspaper headlines and other mass-produced images from American popular culture such as Campbell's soup tins and Coca Cola bottles.

• 1962 began his series portraits of Marilyn Monroe. • 1963 Warhol began to make experimental films. His

studio, known as the Factory, became a meeting point for young artists, actors, musicians.

• Was shot and seriously hurt by Valerie Solanas in 1968.• Warhol was now established as an internationally

famous artist and throughout the 1970s and 1980s exhibited his work around the world.

• On 22 February 1987, Warhol died unexpectedly in New York.

Personality + Artistic Style

• Artistic Style: explored relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertising.

• Many forms of media: hand drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, and music.

• Personality: Bizarre, eccentric. - Homosexual who said to be obsessed with fame and wealth and - was surrounded by flamboyant friends. - Workaholic and ambitious

7 Elements1- Line:

Displays very defined lines in the edges of the drawing and the letters.

3- Shape: 2 dimensional, drawn cylindrical shape consisting of geometric and organic shapes.

4- Form:Not 3 dimensional, but form has been represented in paper by adding depth to the can.

2- Color:Very little color. Uses mainly red, white and black/dark shades, but the contrast between colors is strong, as well as the division between them.

7- Space:The main focus (can) is taking up the space of the composition.

5- Value:Almost no value is shown in this composition (strong characteristic in Pop Art).

6- Texture:The surface quality cannot be felt and it hasn’t been simulated in this work, thus no texture shown.

Andy Warhol: Campbell's Soup II- 1969

WARHOL’S ARTWORKS

“FEMALE FASHION FIGURE“

Early Works (1950)

“MARILYN DIPTYCH“ (1962)

“SAN FRANCISCO SILVERSPOT“ (1983)

SELF-PORTRAIT

Self-Portraits Collection (1986)

“HEAVEN AND HELL ARE JUST ONE BREATH AWAY!“

1985-1986

Quotes • I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.-Andy Warhol

• It’s the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.-Andy Warhol

• Once you ‘got’ Pop, you could never see a sign again the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again.-Andy Warhol

• I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs.-Andy Warhol

Bibliography• http://arthistory.about.com/od/modernarthistory/a/

Pop-Art-Art-History-101-Basics.htm

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hamilton_(artist)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Kitaj• http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/frames.htm• http://www.biography.com/people/roy-lichtenstein-

9381678?page=2

• http://www.pasunautre.com/2010/11/03/artist-tom-wesselmann/

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/warhol_andy.shtml

• http://hqdesktop.net/andy-warhol-incase-portraits-retina-wallpaper-23868/

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol• http://www.wisegeek.com/who-is-andy-warhol.htm#

didyouknowout• http://www.andywarholquotes.org/• http://www.warhol.org/andy_work.aspx?id=683• http://www.artnet.com/artwork/426294306/425935

284/andy-warhol-campbells-soup-ii.html

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/andy-warhol/paintings/slideshow#/10