GENERAL DESCRIPTION
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the incorporation of images from popular culture and everyday life came to complete fruition in the movement known as pop art. Borrowing freely from mass-produced advertisements, newspapers, and comics, pop artists disregarded traditional divisions between high culture and low. Removed from their original contexts, and rearranged to surprising visual effect, stock images took on a new life as art. The works often feature bold color, assemblage, imposing scale, and a mix of photographic and painterly qualities. Some of the principal pop artists are Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenberg, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, Barbara Kruger, and Tom Wesselmann.
Adapted from
DMA exhibition label text, 2009.
NOTES
Joy of text- lowercase pop art
General Description full source: American Pop Art- from "American art text panels" found on V drive, pdf created 2009, no author listed.
See A/V digital recording list- 1997 lecture
Younger artists who directly followed the Abstract Expressionists doubted the ability of abstract art to effectively convey universal spiritual truths. During the 1950s Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns experimented instead with a new focus on the more concrete reality of everyday life. Rauschenberg used three-dimensional commonplace objects such as tires and quilts in his "paintings." Johns made works based on familiar objects such as flags, targets, and coffee cans.
The Pop artists of the sixties extended many of the ideas and methods of Rauschenberg and Johns with their use of mass-produced images from popular (meaning that they are seen and known by many people) culture. Comic strips, billboards, labels from products on supermarket shelves, and magazine advertisements became the inspiration for artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann. Seeing Robert Rauschenberg’s Skyway provokes the public to see images in a new way. The use of mass media images by Pop artists changed the way we define "culture." Instead of referring only to the noblest achievements of the elite, culture became more widely understood as a description of the activities of an entire society.
Activity- language arts:
You have just been commissioned to write a dictionary of art styles. Write your definition of Pop Art. You will want to include:
a. who was involved,
b. what the goals or characteristics of the style were,
c. when they made their art,
d. where they made their art,
e. how Pop Art compares to other styles.
Social Studies:
James Rosenquist and other Pop artists explored and used the imagery of advertising. People who create advertising affect most of us on a daily basis. We see their work on television, in newspapers, on product packaging, and on billboards. They hope to influence us to buy whatever it is they are selling.
Divide the class into two groups. Assign each group to take part in one side of a debate. Here is the question:
"Is advertising good or bad?"
From:
Ken Kelsey, Gail Davitt, Mary Ann Allday, Barbara Barrett, and Troy Smythe, Contemporary Art and Design at the Dallas Museum of Art, Teaching Packet, 1995, page 5, 35, 36.
In the early 1960s, the incorporation of images from popular culture and everyday life suggested by the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg came to complete fruition in the movement known as American pop art. Borrowing freely from mass-produced advertisements, newspapers, and comics, pop artists unabashedly
disregarded traditional divisions between high culture and low. Removed from their original contexts, and rearranged to surprising visual effect, stock images took on a new life as art. That process clearly informs the paintings by Jim Dine, Tom Wesselmann, and Richard Lindner in these galleries; the works feature many of American pop’s defining characteristics, such as bold color, imposing scale, and a mix of photographic and painterly qualities.
American Pop Art- from "American art text panels" found on V drive, pdf created 2009, no author listed.
By the late 1950s other artists had begun to reject the emotional basis of Abstract Expressionism and to develop a cooler aesthetic based on ideas, materials and objects. Assemblage--the combination of non-art materials in a work of art--was a strong current in painting and sculpture of this period. The principle exponents of the new aesthetic were Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, who dealt with objects and symbols, and who painted in a manner which superficially resembled Abstract Expressionism.
In contrast with the personal engagement of the Abstract Expressionists, Rauschenberg described the artist as "part of the density of an uncensored continuum that neither begins nor ends with any action of his." He proposed that the work of art was a partial sample of the world's ~ continuous relationships (city streets, scenes, etc.). This resulted in his "combines" of objects and images from disparate sources which are evocative in their seemingly unstructured, but carefully placed, interrelation, which form a whole. John's paintings of targets and the American flag, presented flatly, like heraldic devices, led toward Pop Art, a major development in art of the 1960s.
Using images drawn from mass media such as comic strips, advertising art, billboards and television, Pop artists take images out of context, often blowing them up to a larger scale. The result is a free-wheeling, boisterous art that commands immediate attention. The principal Pop artists are Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenberg, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann. In addition to paintings by Wesselmann and Rosenquist, the Museum collection includes works by such Pop-related artists as Jim Dine and Richard Lindner. It also has major works by Oldenberg and Rauschenberg. Stake Hitch was commissioned for the opening of the new DMA, while Skyway was created for the 1964 World Fair in New York. It is a veritable tapestry of 20th Century imagery, from Kennedy to the Space Program, set against echoes of Old Master art.
A little known antecedent of Pop, the American painter Gerald Murphy, is represented with several examples. Working in France during the 1920s, Murphy painted common objects such as the pocket watch, razor and matchbox, in a flat, graphic style. Tom Wesselmann's paintings, like Mouth #11, embody a number of characteristics of Pop Art and in a more general sense, of popular American culture. In this work, one of several variations on the female mouth with cigarette, Wesselmann intensifies the force of the common commercial image taken out of context by making it a cut-out shape rather than a conventional canvas format. The painting is on a scale approaching that of a billboard artist, so that the illusion is convincing from a distance. Wesselmann's choice of a shaped canvas, creating a sculptural pbject with contours, parallels the use of an irregular format by abstract artists during the '60s, notably Frank Stella.
Jim Dine's use of actual objects and common images is peripherally related to Pop Art, but unlike most Pop creations, with their bold visual impact and commercial art look, Dine's paintings are cool, restrained and subtle; they may be read on a number of different levels. In Self-Portrait Next to a Colored Window, Dine plays upon the ironic reversal of represented and actual elements, portraying himself in a charcoal drawing clad in a bathrobe and headless like a store manikin; the window is more "real" than the "self-portrait." Although Dine maintains personal identification with the objects he represents, he also creates a certain distance which allows him to look at them with humor; whereas in the total involvement of the earlier Abstract Expressionists, as in Pollock's Portrait and a Dream, the artist directly identifies with the paintings as an extension of himself.
In the paintings of Richard Lindner, whose work also borders on Pop Art, the human figure is transformed into an anonymous machine--flattened, hardened, and depicted in strong color. His subjects, often drawn from the tawdrier aspects of contemporary life, become elaborately costumed performers in dream-like erotic tableaux. In Rock-Rock the figure of the musician and his electric guitar are symbolically fused; the emblazoned background alludes to the pulsating, amplified rhythms of rock music.
From
Anne Bromberg, "Development of Abstraction," Docent notes, Education files, 1987.
illustrate with rosenquist???
ASSOCIATED CONTENT CHUNKS
AUDIO ASSETS
Public Symbols, Private Dreams: The Rise of Pop Art 13314247: UMO
International Pop Artist Panel 253362755: UMO
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- Smart History~Learn more about pop art.
- MoMA Learning~Explore pop art with the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
- Tate, London~Learn about the differences between American and British pop art.
- YouTube~Watch this video about Pop Art from the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
- Artsy.net~Learn more about the impact of female artists on pop art.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
set operator as or
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 821
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 352
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 1382
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 782
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 2586
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 658
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 1324
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 106891
Category
rules_operator
OR
General Description
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the incorporation of images from popular culture and everyday life came to complete fruition in the movement known as pop art. Borrowing freely from mass-produced advertisements, newspapers, and comics, pop artists disregarded traditional divisions between high culture and low. Removed from their original contexts, and rearranged to surprising visual effect, stock images took on a new life as art. The works often feature bold color, assemblage, imposing scale, and a mix of photographic and painterly qualities. Some of the principal pop artists are Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenberg, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, Barbara Kruger, and Tom Wesselmann.
Adapted from
DMA exhibition label text, 2009.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Smart History~Learn more about pop art.
- MoMA Learning~Explore pop art with the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
- Tate, London~Learn about the differences between American and British pop art.
- YouTube~Watch this video about Pop Art from the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
- Artsy.net~Learn more about the impact of female artists on pop art.
Notes
Joy of text- lowercase pop art
General Description full source: American Pop Art- from "American art text panels" found on V drive, pdf created 2009, no author listed.
See A/V digital recording list- 1997 lecture
Younger artists who directly followed the Abstract Expressionists doubted the ability of abstract art to effectively convey universal spiritual truths. During the 1950s Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns experimented instead with a new focus on the more concrete reality of everyday life. Rauschenberg used three-dimensional commonplace objects such as tires and quilts in his "paintings." Johns made works based on familiar objects such as flags, targets, and coffee cans.
The Pop artists of the sixties extended many of the ideas and methods of Rauschenberg and Johns with their use of mass-produced images from popular (meaning that they are seen and known by many people) culture. Comic strips, billboards, labels from products on supermarket shelves, and magazine advertisements became the inspiration for artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann. Seeing Robert Rauschenberg’s Skyway provokes the public to see images in a new way. The use of mass media images by Pop artists changed the way we define "culture." Instead of referring only to the noblest achievements of the elite, culture became more widely understood as a description of the activities of an entire society.
Activity- language arts:
You have just been commissioned to write a dictionary of art styles. Write your definition of Pop Art. You will want to include:
a. who was involved,
b. what the goals or characteristics of the style were,
c. when they made their art,
d. where they made their art,
e. how Pop Art compares to other styles.
Social Studies:
James Rosenquist and other Pop artists explored and used the imagery of advertising. People who create advertising affect most of us on a daily basis. We see their work on television, in newspapers, on product packaging, and on billboards. They hope to influence us to buy whatever it is they are selling.
Divide the class into two groups. Assign each group to take part in one side of a debate. Here is the question:
"Is advertising good or bad?"
From:
Ken Kelsey, Gail Davitt, Mary Ann Allday, Barbara Barrett, and Troy Smythe, Contemporary Art and Design at the Dallas Museum of Art, Teaching Packet, 1995, page 5, 35, 36.
In the early 1960s, the incorporation of images from popular culture and everyday life suggested by the work of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg came to complete fruition in the movement known as American pop art. Borrowing freely from mass-produced advertisements, newspapers, and comics, pop artists unabashedly
disregarded traditional divisions between high culture and low. Removed from their original contexts, and rearranged to surprising visual effect, stock images took on a new life as art. That process clearly informs the paintings by Jim Dine, Tom Wesselmann, and Richard Lindner in these galleries; the works feature many of American pop’s defining characteristics, such as bold color, imposing scale, and a mix of photographic and painterly qualities.
American Pop Art- from "American art text panels" found on V drive, pdf created 2009, no author listed.
By the late 1950s other artists had begun to reject the emotional basis of Abstract Expressionism and to develop a cooler aesthetic based on ideas, materials and objects. Assemblage--the combination of non-art materials in a work of art--was a strong current in painting and sculpture of this period. The principle exponents of the new aesthetic were Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, who dealt with objects and symbols, and who painted in a manner which superficially resembled Abstract Expressionism.
In contrast with the personal engagement of the Abstract Expressionists, Rauschenberg described the artist as "part of the density of an uncensored continuum that neither begins nor ends with any action of his." He proposed that the work of art was a partial sample of the world's ~ continuous relationships (city streets, scenes, etc.). This resulted in his "combines" of objects and images from disparate sources which are evocative in their seemingly unstructured, but carefully placed, interrelation, which form a whole. John's paintings of targets and the American flag, presented flatly, like heraldic devices, led toward Pop Art, a major development in art of the 1960s.
Using images drawn from mass media such as comic strips, advertising art, billboards and television, Pop artists take images out of context, often blowing them up to a larger scale. The result is a free-wheeling, boisterous art that commands immediate attention. The principal Pop artists are Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenberg, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann. In addition to paintings by Wesselmann and Rosenquist, the Museum collection includes works by such Pop-related artists as Jim Dine and Richard Lindner. It also has major works by Oldenberg and Rauschenberg. Stake Hitch was commissioned for the opening of the new DMA, while Skyway was created for the 1964 World Fair in New York. It is a veritable tapestry of 20th Century imagery, from Kennedy to the Space Program, set against echoes of Old Master art.
A little known antecedent of Pop, the American painter Gerald Murphy, is represented with several examples. Working in France during the 1920s, Murphy painted common objects such as the pocket watch, razor and matchbox, in a flat, graphic style. Tom Wesselmann's paintings, like Mouth #11, embody a number of characteristics of Pop Art and in a more general sense, of popular American culture. In this work, one of several variations on the female mouth with cigarette, Wesselmann intensifies the force of the common commercial image taken out of context by making it a cut-out shape rather than a conventional canvas format. The painting is on a scale approaching that of a billboard artist, so that the illusion is convincing from a distance. Wesselmann's choice of a shaped canvas, creating a sculptural pbject with contours, parallels the use of an irregular format by abstract artists during the '60s, notably Frank Stella.
Jim Dine's use of actual objects and common images is peripherally related to Pop Art, but unlike most Pop creations, with their bold visual impact and commercial art look, Dine's paintings are cool, restrained and subtle; they may be read on a number of different levels. In Self-Portrait Next to a Colored Window, Dine plays upon the ironic reversal of represented and actual elements, portraying himself in a charcoal drawing clad in a bathrobe and headless like a store manikin; the window is more "real" than the "self-portrait." Although Dine maintains personal identification with the objects he represents, he also creates a certain distance which allows him to look at them with humor; whereas in the total involvement of the earlier Abstract Expressionists, as in Pollock's Portrait and a Dream, the artist directly identifies with the paintings as an extension of himself.
In the paintings of Richard Lindner, whose work also borders on Pop Art, the human figure is transformed into an anonymous machine--flattened, hardened, and depicted in strong color. His subjects, often drawn from the tawdrier aspects of contemporary life, become elaborately costumed performers in dream-like erotic tableaux. In Rock-Rock the figure of the musician and his electric guitar are symbolically fused; the emblazoned background alludes to the pulsating, amplified rhythms of rock music.
From
Anne Bromberg, "Development of Abstraction," Docent notes, Education files, 1987.
illustrate with rosenquist???
source file
terms-0016.xml.nores