Artists communicate their unique personal views of the world through their artworks that typically reflect the artists’ unique experience and response to time and place. This concept is exemplified in the work of American artists, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Artworks, like “Campbell’s Soup Cans” (1962) and “Drowning Girl” (1963), showcase time and place through popular culture references. Pop art emerged in the mid-20th century as a significant movement that revolutionised traditional art practices and culture. Originating Primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom during the late 1950s and flourishing throughout the 1960s, pop art challenged conventional artistic practices by embracing the imagery, styles, and themes derived …show more content…
In Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans”(1962), Warhol creates the artwork by tracing each can onto a canvas with pencil. Next he would hand paint each can and label, using a light projector to overlay the letters directly onto the canvas. He would repeat this process, so that there would be thirty-two of the cans all together, which would create “Campbell’s Soup Cans”. From looking at the frames, the structural frame emphasises the time and place within the artwork. This art piece has a constant repetition of the cans, which industrialised the mass production of the 1960s. This repetition illustrates the widespread nature of consumer culture in that age, when mass-produced products became symbols of American life. Campbell's Soup cans are an iconic symbol of American society. Campbell's Soup was a household name in the United States, and Warhol's decision to elevate this everyday commodity to the height of high art demonstrates the impact of consumerism and advertising on American society. Furthermore, Warhol was a significant character in the 1960s New York art scene, therefore the artwork might be interpreted as a reflection of that era's cultural
Gallery 19 of the Museum of Modern Art features Pop Art trailblazers of the early 1960s, ranging from Roy Lichtenstein’s “Girl with Ball” to Andy Warhol’s “Gold Marilyn Monroe.” Alongside these emblematic works of art, there hangs a more simplistic piece: a six foot square canvas with three yellow letters, entitled “OOF.” The work of art, created by Ed Ruscha in 1962, is a painting that leaves little room for subjective interpretation as does the majority of his work. Ruscha represented the culture in the 1960s through his contributions to the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, efforts to redefine what it meant for a painting to be fine art, and interpretation of the Space Race.
Pop Art was a Modern art movement that emerged durring the mid-twentieth century in both England and America. It first began to gain recognition in the early 1950’s, after about twenty years of Abstract, as artists altered their attention and looked to change. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Pop Art became much more popular to the general public and successful for the movement’s artists due to the world growing tired of the repeditive forms of Abstract. Found in the Menil Collection, Seated Woman and Lavender Disaster are two examples of Pop Art. The comparison of these two pieces shows although they differ in medium and subject matter both Seated Woman and Lavender Disaster share common underlying themes possesed by all Pop Art.
In order to discuss pop art I have chosen to examine the work and to some extent lives of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol who were two of the main forces behind the American movement. I intend to reflect the attitudes of the public and artists in America at this time, while examining the growing popularity of pop art from its rocky, abstract expressionist start in the 1950s through the height of consumer culture in the 60s and 70s to the present day.
In an interview the artist proposed that the “great [thing] about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest” (Andy Warhol). With his artwork he reached out to millions. The best example of consumerism is the painting 100 Cans in 1962 seen on the left hand side. Even though the painting is by far not as famous as the Marilyn Monroe prints, it played a major role for Campbell soup sales. According to the Albright- Knox Art Gallery, Warhol designed a can that would be more attractive to the Pop Culture . By using different design elements he invited the user or buyer into purchasing the Campbell soup over other soup products. Through the use of elements such as space and and value, the painting appears to be a 3D image. Bright colors catch the consumers/ observer eyes and invites one into the image. The top part of the cans show texture and the different colors on the can itself create balance. Lines make up the shape of a cylinder and the fact that items shapes and colors come up repetitively, displays repetition. All in all, Andy Warhol 's artwork show great composition, which led to his success in the art and advertising
His art style mainly consisted of pop art, some good examples of that would be the “Marilyn Diptych” or the “Campbell’s Soup Cans. “Artist Andy Warhol transformed the art world with his Pop Art creations of the 1960's most famously including the Campbell's Soup Can series of lithographs and sculptural renderings of oversized boxes of Tide. artists. Pop Art. headshots. eyeglasses. glasses. modern art. lithographers. filmmakers. directors.” (No publisher name, “Andy Warhol”). His job in the artistry came to a sudden halt in 1986 when he was shot by Valerie Solanis 3 times, and was critically injured. Once he healed from his injury he was back in business creating art for the public, he wasn't creating much, but it was something. “During this period of time Warhol does very few works, commissioned portraits of artists friends and gallery owners.” (Klaus Honnef, “Warhol”) Throughout the years Andy was creating for many, and did some of the best art work out there, but unfortunately in 1987 Andy died from a failed
This essay will focus on political and social printmaking in the 1960s onwards and it will show how these artists used printmaking to express political views of their times. Pop Art had emerged five years prior to the 1960’s; the Pop Art movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture. It was the visual art movement that characterised a sense of optimism during the post war consumer boom of the 1950's and 1960's. Warhol was the leader of the Pop art movement; he was a major influence for socially conscious art work in the 1960s. Warhol was also a postmodernist artist; he broke down the barrier of high art and low art, much of Warhol’s work went onto address many social/political issues in the 1960s which were produced using the medium of silk screening, although he denied any interest in politics, Warhol did create silkscreen prints Red Race Riots, of 1963 (fig 9), which were based on photographs of the civil rights protesters in Birmingham, and he also created The electric chair, of 1971 (fig 10) which is a haunting image of the execution chamber at Sing Sing. Over the next decade, he repeatedly returned to the subject of the chair, reflecting on the political controversy surrounding the death penalty in America in the 1960s. Warhol presented the chair as a brutal reduction of a life to nothingness, the image of an unoccupied electric chair in an empty execution chamber became a poignant metaphor for death. Warhol strived to communicate the true feeling which is aroused by this terrifying instrument of death.
Pop art is an experimental art which surfaced in Great Britain in the early 1950’s. One of the major art movements of the twentieth century, it came into its own in the United States in the late 1950’s. This art form incorporated photographs in ways that had not been utilized before. It utilized mass-culture imagery and iconography, in contrast to the traditional tendencies of fine art. Pop art is considered to be one of the last modern art movements and served as a precursor to postmodern art. The art form is characterized by themes and techniques derived from mass culture, including advertising and comic books. Perhaps one of the most famous Pop artists, is Andy Warhol.
Andy Warhol, born as Andrew Warhola, is famously known as the leader of the pop art movement back in the 1950’s. One of Warhol’s most famous prints is Campbell’s Soup Cans consists of thirty two canvases lined up in a row of eight and columns of four; another of artwork of Warhol similar to this is Green Coca-Cola Bottles which consisted of 210 Coca-Cola bottles. Many of Warhol’s artwork consisted of a subject repeated and cloned multiple times. Many would say it was because Warhol was raised during the time period where factories began the mass produce, which does contribute to his artwork. But, Andy Warhol was also an incurable hoarder. Warhol wrote in his autobiography that his conscience wouldn’t let him throw anything away, even when
The 60’s was Warhol’s big boom in production and fame. In 1962, Warhol “debuted the concept of ‘pop-art’” (biography.com). Here is where he did his famous pieces like the Campbell’s Soup cans and the Elvis prints. Most of his muse was commercial products at this point. He could make art out of anything. For example, the soup cans or the Brillo box. In 1961, Warhol made a piece inspired by Coca-Cola, which became a “pivotal piece in his career” (warhol.org). In 1962, Warhol made created his pieces he’s most famous for; his silkscreen photographic portraits of celebrities. He made art of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. In this year, Warhol opened a solo pop-art exhibit in Los
Hailed as the founding father of the Pop Art movement in the late 1950's and early 1960's, Andy Warhol, through his endeavors, brought forward society's obsession with mass culture and allowed it to become the subject of his art. He produced works that defied and challenged the popular notion of what art should be by disputing the "traditional conventions pertaining to the uniqueness, authenticity, and authorship" of art (Faerna 28). However, it is an injustice to say that Warhol's goals primarily included the desire to create such a ground-breaking and salient style of American art or to entertain the public by making his own artistic contributions. Rather, Andy Warhol's interests were more entwined in his own self-interest and greed. Although a fraction of Andy Warhol's inspiration resided in his ambition to create a "unique" and exotic style of American art, his main motivation was purely materialistic and involved acquiring large sums of money and publicity to fuel his obsession with wealth and fame.
One of the first sources I examined was a web site on Pop Art. The
Campbell's Soup Cans work suggests a mechanical uniformity that is repeated in the thousands of homes that have a similar object, a banal and common representation of the spirit of our time. Warhol continued to express his ideas about consumerism and kept using repetition in his work. He created several works that involved the same theme of Campbell’s Soup Cans throughout the years.Campbell’s Soup Cans is a work of art produced by pop artist Andy Warhol in 1962. It consists of thirty two canvases of the same size, each 20x16 inches, with a painting of one can of Campbell’s soup, each representing one of the flavors that the company offered in that time. Because of this, it is also known as 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans. The individual paintings were done with a semi mechanized process of serigraphy ("Campbell's Soup Cans").
Pop art got its name from Lawrence Alloway, who was a British art critic in 1950’s. The name “Pop Art” reflected on the “familiar imagery of the contemporary urban environment” (kleiner, 981). This art form was popular for its bold and simple looks plus its bright and vibrant colors. An example of this type of art is the oil painting done by Andy Warhol, “Marilyn Diptych” (Warhol, Marilyn Diptych) in 1962. The Pop art movement became known in the mid-1950 and continued as main type of art form until the late 1960’s. The Pop art movement, was a movement where medium played a huge part in the society, with it reflecting on advertisements, comic strips and even celebrities, like Marilyn. This movement also has a large background and artist that are deeply connected.
Andy Warhol, another appropriating artist used the image of the Mona Lisa in his work. Andy Warhol, a pop artist of the sixties brought American life and culture back to art. This was after the abstract expressionists destroyed the notion and produced very personal and internal works....
Because both of them combined traditional art projects with new technology or inspired by mass media. Pop art started in mid-1950s Britain and grew up in the United States, pop artists engaged in a simultaneous critique of “high art” and against all other kinds of art such as expressionism. Artists no longer concerned with the heroic art of painting but interested in the immediate environment of their popular culture and sought to incorporate them into art. Richard Hamilton proposed that pop art is popular, transient, expendable, low cost, mass produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous and big business (Arnason, 2013, p.456).