Pop Art

Pop Art was a movement that was founded from around 1954 in the United Kingdom, and around 1958 in the United States, and was started by the Independent Group.

Pop Art was different from the norm at the time in that it included images and other media from popular culture, such as advertisements, flyers, newspapers, and so on. These materials are often taken out of their original context to produce a different kind of artwork tha what was seen traditionally.

Pop Art started off un the United Kingdom as an attempt to challenge the modernist approaches to culture and design. The first artwork that conformed to the Pop Art style was the collage "I was a Rich Man's Plaything" part of a series named "Bunk!". This collage evolved to become the standard bearer of the movement, as it was the first to reference itself in the artwork.

The first mixed media piece to be classed as Pop Art, featuring what would've been cultural staples of the time.

The movement's takeoff in the US was different as it was in the UK. Advertisers had started to use different elements of modern art and had become more sophisticated, and this made it difficult for artists of this movement to find usable media that would differentiate their work from advertisements. Because of this, artwork from the US was bolder and was more aggressive, whilst artists from the UK thought the artwork felt more humourous, romantic and dramatic.

The movement's popularity in the US was thanks to artists including Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichenstein. These artists had their own styles that reflected the Pop Art ethos in an effective manner:

Andy Warhol is perhaps one of the more famous names from this movement, who was known for his exploration of artistic expression, use of advertising and celebrity culture in his artwork.

Campbell's Soup is one of Warhol's more bizarre pieces, but reflects his nature of expression through popular culture.

Robert Rauschenberg's artwork, whilst categorised as neo-Dadaist, had social messages as their focus. He would take imagery of normal American culture and manipulate them into something different:

This sculpture was designed to something different with something people saw so often.

Roy Lichenstein's artwork was made on large canvases made with magna paint. Most of his earlier work mimiced the style of comics, using half-tone patterns, vibrant clours with basic tones and thick black outlines. 

This painting, made on a canvas measuring four meters in length and standing at nearly two meters tall, was based on a page from DC Comic's All-American Men of War. The original artist was uncredited.