US History

Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

Arts

This collection uses primary sources to explore Pop Art in the United States.

A press release for Jasper Johns’s 1958 exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York.

Johns’s use of everyday subject matter seemed to eliminate creativity from artmaking, but his visible brushstrokes in thickly applied paint called attention to process and underscored his paintings as original works of art. 

A photograph of the gallery owner Leo Castelli in an exhibition of Jasper Johns’s work, 1958.

One of the earliest promoters of pop art, Leo Castelli represented Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and other artists. Castelli is here shown in his gallery, standing between two of Johns’s early paintings, *Flag* and *Target with Plaster Casts*, in which the small wooden boxes above the target open to reveal plaster casts of different parts of the human body. 

A window display at the Bonwit Teller department store with artwork by Robert Rauschenberg, 1957.

Rauschenberg and many other pop artists first earned their living as commercial artists designing billboards, window displays, and print ads. The visible paint drips and patchwork effect of different surface textures in Rauschenberg’s painting, hung behind the mannequins, are characteristic of his mixed-media works.

A letter from Roy Lichtenstein with comic book pages, 1963. 

Lichtenstein based many of his large paintings on images he found in comic books. He usually included short bits of text that highlight the scene’s melodramatic content and serve as the work’s title.

Transcription:

Dear Ellen [H. Johnson], 

I finally finished the two works you photographed at my Broad Street studio. The original cartoons are included here along with some photos of earlier work. I don't seem to have a black & white photo of anything from 1951 to my recent work. I hope these are of help.

Come see us when you're in this area. Isabel sends regards. 

Roy

P.S. Ileana [Sonnabend] will take the "I know how you must feel Brad" and someone in Kansas C. has "My heart is always with you". Leo [Castelli] probably has photo of the finished work. 


A photograph of artworks installed in *The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein*, a 1995 exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art. 

By hand-painting tiny dots to create areas of color and shading in his work, Lichtenstein ironically imitated Ben-Day dots, an inexpensive mechanical technique used in commercial printing. He later adapted this signature style in his prints and even sculptures. 

Ed Ruscha’s poster for the Pasadena Museum of Art’s 1962 exhibition *New Painting of Common Objects*.

Although pop art is often discussed as a New York phenomenon, the first exhibitions to call attention to the new style were in Los Angeles. Recognizing an emerging trend of paintings depicting “common objects,” Walter Hopps, curator at the Pasadena Museum of Art, brought together artists from the East and West Coasts for this first major exhibition of pop art. 

Excerpt from a 2011 oral history interview with Ed Ruscha about modern art in Los Angeles.

Associated with the West-Coast variation of pop art, Ed Ruscha was among the artists who developed its characteristic themes and styles. Ruscha’s early interest in advertising logos led him to focus on the dynamic impact of words themselves to communicate meaning to the viewer.  In this interview, Ruscha discusses an exhibition organized by Walter Hopps, curator at the Pasadena Museum of Art.

A 1965 photograph of a Coca-Cola Company promotion at a bottling plant.

Throughout the post-war years, advertisers capitalized on the availability of consumer goods brought about by mass production and economic prosperity. Promotions encouraged consumption by displaying rows upon rows of brightly labeled products, implying a never-ending supply ready to make people happy. 

A 1962 photograph of Andy Warhol’s *Green Coca-Cola Bottles* screenprint. 

Warhol used repeated images, grid-like composition, and commercial printing techniques to reference the systematic mass production of consumer goods. He even called his studio “The Factory,” and often had assistants create the prints for him. 

Andy Warhol’s 1964 lithograph, *Marilyn Monroe I Love Your Kiss Forever Forever*, from *1¢ Life*.

Warhol created this print for *1¢ Life*, a book by Chinese-born artist Walasse Ting that featured sixty-two large unbound lithographs by pop and abstract-expressionist artists as headers for Ting’s own poetical texts. Warhol’s treatments of subjects such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis recall his images of Coca-Cola bottles and Campbell’s soup cans, suggesting that celebrities were also commodities available to consumers. 

Tom Wesselmann’s 1962 collage *Still Life (#12)*.

Known for his bright colors and sharp precision, Wesselman plays on the tradition of still life painting by collaging brand logos and advertising imagery in this work. Historically, still-life painting has often symbolized excessive materiality and misplaced desire for earthly pleasures. 

An excerpt from a statement made in a US House of Representatives subcommittee hearing regarding a national highway system, 1956. 

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 called for construction of a nationwide system of major highways to connect the country. In addition to promoting interstate commerce, new roads contributed to a growing car culture bolstered by a powerful automotive industry. 

The cover of the General Motors Corporation’s magazine, *GM Folks*, advertising the 1956 Cadillac. 

American companies like General Motors released new models of their popular automobiles every year. Using the mass media and corporate advertising publications, companies promoted cars as signs of luxury, status, and the ideal American life.

A 1953 postcard of Ray’s, a drive-in on US Highway 40 near Reno, Nevada.

The popularity of drive-ins and motels in the 1950s underscores the importance of the automobile in these years. As both a mode of transportation and a status symbol, cars—new, shiny, and fast—came to reflect a national identity, rooted in the vast expanses of the American landscape and the freedom of the open road. 

Allan D’Arcangelo’s 1963 work, *June Moon*.

Allan D’Arcangelo often drew his subject matter from highways, road signs, and other aspects of car culture. His paintings reflect the graphic clarity, repetition, and irony that characterized pop art across the United States. 

Questions

1. Compare the work of Jasper Johns (as seen in the [press release](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1484) and [photograph of Castelli](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1485)), Andy Warhol (as seen in the [photograph of *Green Coca-Cola Bottles*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1492) and [*Marilyn Monroe I Love Your Kiss Forever Forever*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1493)), Tom Wesselmann (as seen in [*Still Life (#12)*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1494)), and Allan D’Arcangelo (as seen in [*June Moon*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1498)). Aside from the popular subject matter, what other similarities do you notice? How do these characteristics seem to reflect the changing American culture that inspired pop artists? 
2. Using the [interview with Ed Ruscha](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1490), explain some of the reasons you think pop art became accepted in the art world. How do Ruscha’s comments affect your understanding of how artists work? 
3. Pop art is sometimes described as “ironic” because it often reveals something contrary to the viewer’s expectations. How do you think Allan d’Arcangelo’s [*June Moon*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1498) employs irony? Discuss how other sources in this set are similarly ironic. 
4. Describe how advertising today compares to the [promotion for Coca-Cola](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1491), the [magazine cover advertising a new Cadillac](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1496), and the [postcard of Ray’s](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1497). How do the differences and similarities reflect changes in society? 
5. Inventory the materials and artistic techniques you see in [Roy Lichtenstein’s prints](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1488), Andy Warhol’s [*Green Coca-Cola Bottles*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1492) and [*Marilyn Monroe I Love Your Kiss Forever Forever*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1493), and Tom Wesselmann’s [*Still Life (#12)*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1494). How does each artist’s choice of technique reinforce ideas associated with pop art? How might their artistic processes have contributed to the critical response pop received from Max Kozloff and others in the art world? 
6. Use the [Ed Ruscha poster](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1489), as well as your independent research about the exhibition *New Painting of Common Objects*, describe some of the distinctions between pop artists in Los Angeles and those in New York. How might these reflect regional differences in the United States? 


Activity

1. Ask students to debate whether or not pop art offered a critique of popular culture, the influence of mass media, and advertising images. How ironic was pop art? How critical? Students should support their reasoning with description and analysis of examples in the set. 
2. Ask students to look closely at Tom Wesselmann’s 1962 collage [*Still Life (#12)*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1494), considering its possible meaning, the artist’s process, and how the collaged pictures and logos contribute to the work’s impact. Working in small groups, students should choose advertising images online or in magazines to create their own collage addressing a current topic or concern in today’s world. 

Teaching Guide: Exploring Pop Art in the US

Resources

1. [Pop Art](https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/pop/a/pop-art), Khan Academy. 
2. [The Warhol Museum](https://www.warhol.org/).  
3. [Pop Art at the Tate](http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/pop-art). 
4. “[11 Female Artists Who Left Their Mark on Pop Art](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-11-female-artists-who-left-their-mark-on-pop-art),” Artsy.


Overview

Best known for Andy Warhol’s bright images of soup cans and celebrities, pop art got its name from its “popular” subject matter and slick graphic look, which mimicked advertising of the time. It emerged out of experiments in the mid-1950s, when artists began to incorporate elements of everyday life into fine art. Jasper Johns combined sophisticated painting techniques with literal depictions of flags and targets, and Robert Rauschenberg attached found objects—an old quilt, used tires, and even a stuffed goat—to his painted canvases. By the 1960s, pop art could be found across the US, demonstrating widespread artistic response to a changing cultural landscape. 

This landscape included the mass production of more and more consumer goods as well as efficient nationwide distribution of those goods, bolstered by advances in manufacturing and the development of an interstate highway system. After the Great Depression and shortages during the war, the ample availability of food, soda pop, cars, and other luxury items seemed evidence of an “American dream,” attainable by all. Egged on by economic prosperity and the growing mass media and entertainment industry, Americans began to see personal success and social status reflected in the things that they owned or could buy. 

For many in the art world, an art that embraced these cultural changes seemed to mock established expectations that art should communicate profound truths, rooted in the artist’s creativity and individual expression. Writing in 1962, New York critic Max Kozloff complained that “art galleries are being invaded by the pin-headed and contemptible style of gum chewers, bobby soxers, and worse, delinquents.” For critics like Kozloff, pop represented a decline from the European intellectualism of modern art towards a lowbrow set of new American values, rooted in the expansion of consumerism, popular culture, and mass media. 

Questions remain about whether pop art merely glorified the ordinary things in life or offered ironic commentary about cultural changes in the post-war years. Given the continued rise of consumerism and greater recognition of its negative effects, it is also worth considering what pop art may mean today. 

English

Pop Art in the US

pop-art_11_1b51ac6f3a40b1ac98ea7857e95a326d.jpg

Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum via Smithsonian Institution.

Wesselmann, Tom, “Still Life #12,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/1b51ac6f3a40b1ac98ea7857e95a326d.

Tom Wesselmann’s 1962 collage Still Life (#12).

Cite this item

Tips for Students

Item 11 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Pop Art in the US