How to Recognize Pop Art From the USA

Pop Art in the USA emerged from the works of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. You can recognize the roots of American Pop Art in John's collages and sculptures of everyday objects like paint brushes, beer cans and light bulbs and Rauschenberg's famous combines, one of which consisted of an improbable group of objects, including a stuffed angora goat, a tire and the heel of a shoe. Other American artists, including Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, had their own takes on Pop Art.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Recognize Pop Art From the USA

1. Recognize Pop Art from the USA by the use of everyday objects. Campbell Soup cans, coke bottles, beer cans, comic strips and advertisements were all fair game for American Pop artists.

2. Look for figural imagery. As a reaction against abstract expressionism (which was nonrepresentational and technically free), pop artists from the USA incorporated figural imagery into their work.

3. Check for irony. Roy Lichtenstein's "Brushstrokes" was a parody of the action painting of Abstract Expressionism, the movement which Pop Art was rebelling against. The irony in the drawing is Lichtenstein's rendering of drips and splatters, satirizing the spontaneity of the action painters.

4. Count the reps. Andy Warhol often silk-screened the same image multiple times to prove that anything considered popular could be mass produced, even a celebrity or Campbell's Soup can. His "100 Cans" and "25 Marilyns" are examples of repetition in American Pop Art.

5. See if it will sell. Pop Artists from the USA wanted to make art that conveyed a powerful, clear image, sending a message that nearly anything could be turned into a marketable product.

6. Look for sharply defined, quasi-photographic images. Andy Warhol used a photo-realistic printmaking technique called serigraphy to create many of his works.

7. Read "Pop Art: A Critical History" by Steven Henry Madoff at Amazon (see Resources below). Madoff has compiled a series of articles, reviews and interviews from contemporary American art magazines and newspapers during the Pop era of the 1960s. Reviews date from 1962 to 1970. Artists include Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Rosenquist and Warhol.

8. Take notice of cartoons and comic strips. Some American Pop artists found sources for their work in comic books and cartoons. Roy Lichtenstein's "Drowning Girl" is a good example.

Tips & Warnings

• The Pop Art movement surfaced in England in the 1950s. David Hockney was one of its most famous practitioners. Pop Art in Britain was less garish and more wistful than American Pop Art but it also utilized the imagery and techniques of consumerism and popular culture. An acquaintance with British Pop Art would be helpful in learning to recognize Pop Art from the USA.