Styles & Periods

Pop Art

One of the most influential movements to occur after World War II was Pop Art. Simultaneous with Op Art, but differing in its basis in commercial images, the effects of Pop Art are still evident in the art and advertising worlds. Representational objects were depicted in a manner that imitated the mass media. Comic books, packaging and design, and advertising were all used as sources for the strong images in Pop Art. This meeting of fine and commercial art, or refined and popular tastes, was revolutionary, and aided in dissolving many distinctions between the two. Many of the influential Pop artists, such as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, employed methods that removed the obvious presence of the artist's hand, in a reaction to the lush treatments of the Abstract Expressionists. While the work of Pop artists seemed to eschew the tradition of Abstract Expressionism, it had strong alliances with Dadaism, and at times has been called Neo-Dada. Like Dada, the center of Pop art was the alliance with using common objects in graphically strong and vibrant compositions.