Characteristics and Artists of Pop Art

One of the most significant Pop Art artists is undoubtedly Roy Lichtenstein. 

The American Pop Art artist lived from 1923 to 1997 and is regarded as one of the founders of Pop Art and as the artist who brought together low and high art. His works are inspired by cartoons; they often feature speech bubbles and text. He repeatedly painted stereotypical blonde women, war heroes or comic-book characters. His work is colourful and garish – typical of Pop Art colours.

The famous Pop Art artist was also influenced by music; for example, he played the clarinet and the piano and was strongly influenced by jazz. His works are characterised by the ‘Dost method’, a stylistic technique. In this, he uses many small dots to fill a surface. As a result, his work is somewhat reminiscent of many tiny pixels, as in a photograph.

As well as comic-book characters and stylised blondes, he also frequently paid tribute to older artists; for example, he painted a picture of Picasso, amongst other works. He also produced a number of landscape prints, though these did not attract nearly as much attention – perhaps because they did not conform to the typical characteristics of Pop Art. He created a large sculpture for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. Pop Art works were therefore very diverse and not limited to painting alone.

Notable artists of the Pop Art era

Another co-founder and exponent of Pop Art was Andy Warhol. During his lifetime, the artist suffered from an illness and spent a great deal of time in bed. Shaped by this period, his passion for comics and films began to develop. He created many collages and cut out figures. In 1945, he began his studies in commercial art and eventually graduated with a degree in painting and design.

His work on Marilyn Monroe is particularly well known. During the Pop Art era, he created simple portraits of famous people and reproduced them – amongst other things, he produced a series of prints of the Mona Lisa. Once he had established himself as a recognised artist and was able to set up studios, which he called the ‘Factory’, he also began working in film. He began making films featuring nude people – which not everyone was happy about at the time. As a result, the women’s rights activist Valerie Solanas carried out an assassination attempt on Warhol, which he only just survived.

Jasper Johns was also a key figure in Pop Art.

Many of his works were not strictly Pop Art pieces, but are instead regarded as precursors to the movement. Signs, maps and flags were his motifs and heralded the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. His acquaintance with John Cage also had an enormous influence on his work.

Robert Rauschenberg was also a pioneer of Pop Art. His vision was to bring the everyday into art and thus breathe reality into the visual world. To this end, he used, for example, real tennis balls or a stuffed goat. He left these elements unchanged; in other words, rather than turning them into materials, he used them exactly as they were. With his ‘white paintings’ at his first solo exhibition, he created an interesting take on painting: he ‘erased’ it. Shadows, lighting conditions and silence were reflected in his works.

For example, he etched out a drawing by his fellow artist Willem de Kooning as a way of settling scores with Abstract Expressionism. A radical gesture that not everyone could understand.

Were there any German Pop Art artists?