International movement in painting, sculpture and printmaking. The term originated in the mid-1950s at the ICA, London, in the discussions held by the Independent group concerning the artefacts of popular culture. This small group included the artists Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi as well as architects and critics. Lawrence Alloway, the critic who first used the term in print in 1958, conceived of Pop art as the lower end of a popular-art to fine-art continuum, encompassing such forms as advertising, science-fiction illustration and automobile styling. Hamilton defined Pop in 1957 as: ‘Popular (designed for a mass audience); Transient (short term solution); Expendable (easily forgotten); Low Cost; Mass Produced; Young (aimed at Youth); Witty; Sexy; Gimmicky; Glamorous; and Big Business’. Hamilton set out, in paintings such as £he (1958–61; London, Tate), to explore the hidden connotations of imagery taken directly from advertising and popular culture, making reference in the same work to pin-ups and domestic appliances as a means of commenting on the covert eroticism of much advertising presentation (for illustration see Hamilton, Richard)
American Pop art emerged suddenly in the early 1960s and was in general characterized by a stark and emblematic presentation that contrasted with the narrative and analytical tendencies of its British counterpart. At its most rigorous, American Pop art insisted on a direct relationship between its use of the imagery of mass production and its adoption of modern technological procedures. Whereas British Pop art often celebrated or satirized consumer culture, American Pop artists tended to have a more ambiguous attitude towards their subject-matter, nowhere more so than in the mixture of glamour and pathos that characterized Andy Warhol’s silkscreened icons of Hollywood film stars, as in The Marilyn Diptych (1962; London, Tate).
Compared to the disparate nature of British Pop art, from the early 1960s American Pop art appeared to be a unified movement. Its shared formal characteristics included aggressively contemporary imagery, anonymity of surface, strong, flatly applied colours and a stylistic unity often associated with centralized compositions. Each of the American artists was quick to establish his or her identity, often with the ironic suggestion that the art was like any consumer product or brand name to be marketed. Foremost among them were Warhol’s testaments to machine-line production and to capitalism, such as 80 Two-dollar bills (1962; Cologne, Mus. Ludwig), and Roy Lichtenstein’s formalized enlargements of the frames of comic strips, often violent or melodramatic, for example Drowning Girl (1963; New York, MOMA; for further illustration see Lichtenstein, Roy).
American Pop art emerged suddenly in the early 1960s and was in general characterized by a stark and emblematic presentation that contrasted with the narrative and analytical tendencies of its British counterpart. At its most rigorous, American Pop art insisted on a direct relationship between its use of the imagery of mass production and its adoption of modern technological procedures. Whereas British Pop art often celebrated or satirized consumer culture, American Pop artists tended to have a more ambiguous attitude towards their subject-matter, nowhere more so than in the mixture of glamour and pathos that characterized Andy Warhol’s silkscreened icons of Hollywood film stars, as in The Marilyn Diptych (1962; London, Tate).
Compared to the disparate nature of British Pop art, from the early 1960s American Pop art appeared to be a unified movement. Its shared formal characteristics included aggressively contemporary imagery, anonymity of surface, strong, flatly applied colours and a stylistic unity often associated with centralized compositions. Each of the American artists was quick to establish his or her identity, often with the ironic suggestion that the art was like any consumer product or brand name to be marketed. Foremost among them were Warhol’s testaments to machine-line production and to capitalism, such as 80 Two-dollar bills (1962; Cologne, Mus. Ludwig), and Roy Lichtenstein’s formalized enlargements of the frames of comic strips, often violent or melodramatic, for example Drowning Girl (1963; New York, MOMA; for further illustration see Lichtenstein, Roy).
Richard Hamilton
Palindrome
Richard Hamilton is credited with single-handedly launching the British school of Pop Art with his famous collage "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" in 1956, years before that movement arrived on American shores. Trained as a painter and draftsman at the Royal Academy and the Slade School of Fine Art in London, his oeuvre also includes a large number of prints in a variety of media, as well as full-scale installations, book production, and industrial design objects. His work in printmaking has been particularly innovative and utilizes the newest technologies available, notably computer-generated images.
In this optically complex print, Hamilton recreates the illusion of someone (in this case, the artist) touching the surface of a mirror, and then simultaneously seeing the back of his own hand, and the frontal reflection of his face and body. The lifesize proportions of the figure add to the scene's veracity. The piece is symbolically titled Palindrome, a word whose Greek derivatives mean "fast (palin) return (dromos)," or rebound, and applies both to words with alphabetic symmetry (e.g., "eye"), and photons bouncing off a reflective surface. Created especially for a group portfolio, Mirrors of the Mind published by Marian Goodman and Multiples Inc. (New York), the project gave the artist the impetus to try a new technology—lenticular laminated three-dimensional printing.
In this optically complex print, Hamilton recreates the illusion of someone (in this case, the artist) touching the surface of a mirror, and then simultaneously seeing the back of his own hand, and the frontal reflection of his face and body. The lifesize proportions of the figure add to the scene's veracity. The piece is symbolically titled Palindrome, a word whose Greek derivatives mean "fast (palin) return (dromos)," or rebound, and applies both to words with alphabetic symmetry (e.g., "eye"), and photons bouncing off a reflective surface. Created especially for a group portfolio, Mirrors of the Mind published by Marian Goodman and Multiples Inc. (New York), the project gave the artist the impetus to try a new technology—lenticular laminated three-dimensional printing.
References:
http://www.moma.org/collection/theme.php?theme_id=10170
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2000.382
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