EDUCATION 23
TUESDAY OCTOBER 21 2014
t
ITION
POP TO POPISM EXHIBhol
ding an
The Art Gallery of NSW is 70 of the
exhibition of 200 works bying several
greatest pop artists, includ vember 1,
Australians. It runs from Nodetails, see
2014, to March 1, 2015. Foru
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.a
or call 1800 679 278.
DID YOU KNOW?
î THE term pop art was coined in the 1950s by influential
English art critic Lawrence Alloway who originally meant the
term to refer to all art of popular culture. It later became
applied specifically to artists who appropriated popular images
for their form of modern art.
î THE pop artworks of Claes Oldenburg show ordinary
objects made from unusual materials, such as his 1962 work
Soft Pay Phone, a public phone made from vinyl. He also
depicts objects in unusual sizes, such as Spoonbridge and
Cherry (1985), a huge cherry perched on a giant bent spoon.
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
studied fine
in New York in 1923. He
AMERICAN artist born
ly works
ear
his
of
e
som
d
rsity an
modern
arts at Ohio State Unive
in
d
uce
rod
erican west, rep
fore
be
were scenes of the Am
ism
on
ssi
pre
ex
act
in abstr
painting
art styles. He dabbled
by
ed
pir
ins
cartoon style,
He
hitting on his distinctive
0.
196
in
en
ldr
chi
his
n for
a Mickey Mouse cartoo
cropped
ics, blew them up and
took images from com
stract
ab
the
on
re
mo
d
use
them tightly so they foc
e of the
tur
na
al
nic
se the mecha
elements. To emphasi
printing
the
of
ts
do
ay
n-D
Be
images he imitated the
y were
rks look as though the
process to make his wo
first solo
His
.
rce
sou
d
nte
pri
al
enlarged from the origin
became
he
6
196
in
d
an
s
ge succes
show in 1962 was a hu
He
y.
ller
hibit at the Tate Ga
the first American to ex
died in 1997..
î MANY pop artists worked on record album covers for rock
and pop bands. British artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth
created the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts
Club Band, Australian artist Martin Sharp did the art work for
Cream’s Disraeli Gears and even co-wrote the Cream song
Tales Of Brave Ulysseys.
MARTIN SHARP
Main: In The Car, by Roy Lichenstein.
From top: A sculpture by US artist Robert
Indiana, inspired by his Love painting from
the 1960s; Mouth #2” by Tom Wesselmann;
A Splendid Superior Home by Howard Arkley.
ON
d at the Royal
of Marcel Duchamp
f already created
s. In 1956
t What Is It That
ppealing? It was
show This Is
ent artists.
luding found art
he Beatles’ White
1967 screen print
ones’ singer Mick
dealer) being arrested
n. He died in 2011.
V1 - NTNE01Z01MA
ANDY WARHOL
PERHAPS the most famous pop artist of all, Andy
Warhol, was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh in the US.
He studied pictorial design at the Carnegie
Institute of Technology. He worked as a
commercial illustrator before producing his own
pop art works depicting household objects such
as soup cans, or boxes of Brillo pads. He also
screen printed photographs of celebrities (such as
Elizabeth Taylor, left), often with repeats of the
same image in garish colours. The images were
mass produced with little input from the artist,
apart from choice of subject and colour schemes.
Warhol is often quoted as saying that in the future it
will be possible for everyone to have 15 minutes of fame.
AUSTRALIAN artist born in 1942 in Sydney, Sharp began as a
graphic artist and cartoonist before holding his first one-man
art show in 1965. His early work is typified by bright,
psychedelic colours and collage elements, sympathetic with
the modernist work of the pop artists in Great Britain and the
United States. Living the pop art credo of making no
distinction between mass art and high art, Martin Sharp
produced iconic record album covers and graphic designs for
posters including his work for Circus Oz and Luna Park.
Sharp died in 2013, aged 71. Pictured above is Martin Sharp’s
Self Portrait 1967-68.
SOURCES AND FURTHER STUDY:
BOOKS
Pop by Hal Foster and Mark Francis (Phaidon)
Pop Art edited by Lucy R. Lippard (Hudson)
Pop To Popism by Wayne Tunnicliffe and Anneke Jaspers
(Art Gallery NSW)
WEBSITES
Encyclopaedia Britannica Pop Art
Design: Jack Tanner