Pop Art was an American artistic renaissance that flourished in the late 1950s and 1960s. Among the most influential members of the school were Jasper Johns, Hamilton, and Andy Warhol. The school formed in reaction to the elitism and obstructionism of the Abstract Expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and their contemporaries. The actual term "Pop Art" was originally employed by the influential Laurence Alloway, a British art critic, in 1958. At once the child of Dadaism, the expression of a culture fascinated by celebrity and mass consumerism, and a commentary on that culture, Pop Art captured the imagination of millions. Yet most of the millions who consumed and enjoyed Pop Art in its commercial form had little idea that the joke was, in some sense, on them. By far the most visible advocate of the Pop Art school was Andy Warhol, an American painter, advertiser, filmmaker, and artist. Warhol loved to pun on celebrity. His artistic haven, dubbed The Factory, became a stomping ground for artists, writers, and celebrities of the time. Andy Warhol also developed the Pop Art design of the Campbell's Soup can, which has been ingrained as an iconic symbol into our collective memory. Campbell's soup cans were designed to replicate what Warhol believed was an old-timey look, but the cans were simultaneously intended to be a comment on consumer culture. The humor, amphetamine-fueled debauchery, and sense of excitement and experimentation that defined the Pop Art movement continue to fascinate art historians and the public at large. |
