An art movement and style that had its origins in England in the 1950s and made its way to the United States during the 1960s. Pop artists have focused attention upon familiar images of the popular culture such as billboards, comic strips, magazine advertisements, and supermarket products. The term first appeared in Britain during the 1950s and referred to the interest of a number of artists in the images of mass media, advertising, comics and consumer products. The 1950s were a period of optimism in Britain following the end of war-time rationing, and a consumer boom took place.

Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! 1963, acrylic and oil on canvas, 172.7 x 406.4 cm, Tate Gallery, London.

Although the movement began in the late 1950s, Pop Art in America was given its greatest impetus during the 1960s. By this time, American advertising had adopted many elements and inflections of modern art and functioned at a very sophisticated level. Consequently, American artists had to search deeper for dramatic styles that would distance art from the well-designed and clever commercial materials.

Robert Indiana, LOVE, 1966, oil on canvas, 71 7/8 x 71 7/8 inches, Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN.

American artists, being bombarded daily with the diversity of mass produced imagery, produced work that was generally more bold and aggressive. Pop artists also aimed at broadening taste into more popular, less academic art.

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987),

Campbell's Tomato Soup, 1962, oil on canvas

Pop Art therefore coincided with the youth and pop music phenomenon of the 1950s and '60s, and became very much a part of the image of fashionable, 'swinging' London. Peter Blake, for example, designed album covers for Elvis Presley and the Beatles and placed film stars such as Brigitte Bardot in his pictures in the same way that Warhol was immortalizing Marilyn Monroe in the USA.

Sir Peter Blake, “Sgt. Pepper’s,” Beatles album cover

Roy Lichtenstein

Sandwich and Soda, 1964 Brushstroke, 1965 Explosion, 1965-6

His work featured thick outlines, bold colors and Benday Dots to represent certain colors, as if created by photographic reproduction.

The DreamWorks Records logo was his last completed project.

Andy Warhol

Turquoise Marylin, 1962 Mao, c.1972 Diamond Dust Shoes, 1980

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's Soup Cans and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Troy Donahue, Muhammad Ali and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory", his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He began producing prints using the silkscreen method. His work became popular and controversial.

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks, 1969 Balancing Tools, 1981 Spoonbridge and Cherry, 1988

“We want to communicate with the public but on our own terms, even if the images are stereotypical,” Claes Oldenburg

“Working together supposes an almost complete understanding of the other, an impossibility in any case, so instead we choose a unity of opposites, a convergence of our different dynamics, of symmetry and asymmetry, of acceleration or implied speed and stillness, of a polychrome and monochrome palette, gravity and lightness -- all interrelating and interchangeable elements to be used by either one of us,” Coosje van Bruggen

Giant Ice Bag, Oldenburg/ van Bruggen Target, Jasper Johns

100 Soup Cans, Andy Warhol

Zero Nine, Jasper Johns

MONOCHROMATIC COLOR SCHEME: Consisting of only a single color or hue; may include its tints and shades

ANALOGOUS COLOR SCHEME: Any two or more colors that are next to each other on the color wheel and share a hue. For example, blue, blue-green, and green all have the color blue in common.

COMPLEMENTARY COLOR SCHEME: Colors opposite each other on the color wheel

PRIMARY COLOR SCHEME: The colors yellow, red, and blue from which it is possible to mix all the other colors of the spectrum

Blue Yellow Red

SECONDARY COLOR SCHEME: The colors obtained by mixing equal amounts of two primary colors.

Purple Green Orange

INTERMEDIATE COLOR SCHEME: Also known as tertiary color, they are produced by mixing unequal amounts of two primary colors. For example, adding more red to the combination of red and yellow will produce the intermediate color of red-orange.

Blue- violet Red- violet Yellow- orange Red- orange Blue- green Yellow- green

1. You will draw a COMMON image, something you see every day– this can be an object or a logo– remember it needs to be something from POPULAR CULTURE.

2. Once you have your drawing, you will trace it three times so you have a set of four EXACT copies.

3. You will use colored pencils and color each drawing using a different color scheme: primary, secondary, complementary, analogous, monochromatic. (you may not have two of the same color schemes that use different colors, for example– you can only have one monochromatic color scheme– not two.) You also need to label the color schemes on the back of your drawing and include the colors in that color scheme.

4. You will paste your drawings on a larger sheet of paper when you are done.