Pop Art - The History, the Movement and the Artists

Popartuk Knowledge Base

The History of Pop Art

The term pop art is an abbreviation of the artistic movement ‘popular art,’ which was first used by Lawrence Alloway, an English Critic. Pop art emerged in the 1950’s in Britain and became one of the major artistic movements of the twentieth century. Pop art caught on in America in the early 1960’s and tended to be used in advertisements and comic books. It was so popular as a movement because people were getting tedious of abstract and fine art; pop art was new, bold and different, one of its main advantages was its a ability to appeal to a wide range audience, plus its vibrant and bright block colours made pop art interesting to look at, it also gave a modern hip feel to it. These bright colours also gave pop art the capability to emphasise certain elements in its culture, it also eliminated the divide between the commercial arts and the fine arts. Another main element of pop art was the way that it was able to use popular images and icons and re-define them.

The Pop Art Movement

Pop Art came about at a time when society was changing for many different reasons; the movement began in the 1950’s, England however it was the Americans that made increased the awareness and success of pop art in the 1960’s. Before pop art came about, the big artistic movement was the almost two decade period of influence from the abstract artists, led by Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian painter. Abstract art dominated the world of art with the city of New York being its centre, holding many of the movements’ paintings. Abstract art was sophisticated and not available to everybody making it an elite privilege to own. Pop art wanted to bring art back into the everyday life of the people, working with simple everyday objects that were available to all (think Andy Warhol’s popular soup cans). It merged the divide between the fine arts with the media and advertising commercial arts, a divide that had been prominent for hundreds of years making pop art a major success becoming one of the biggest movements of the 20th Century. Pop art had the ability to look glamorous and polished even though it was massed produced and relevantly low cost but this added to the beauty of it. It captured the changes in society; the enormous economic growth and instant Hollywood success with celebrities.

Famous Pop Artists

Andy Warhol (August 1928 – February 1987) was an American artist and was a very central figure of the pop art movement. Not only was Warhol very successful as an artist but he was also talented at writing and producing records and films, however it was Warhol’s paintings that made him so famous worldwide. His painting of Campbell’s soup tin which was used for a commercial has become extremely well known and praised along with his screen-print of Marilyn Monroe which reflects Warhol’s own insight on American fame and stardom.

Sir Peter Thomas Blake (June 1932) Blake was an English artist who is best known for his design for the iconic band The Beatles album artwork Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band . Blakes main focus was doing advertisments which led him to be one of the biggest English pop artists.