The 50’s were a time of continued American economic growth following World War II. Although many remained constrained by their fear of the Cold War, many Americans also achieved unprecedented levels of success and security. Many families moved out of the cities into the suburbs and their cookie cutter houses, and manufacturing industries were at an all time high. This inspired a culture of consumerism, where in many people’s eyes, status was all based on what you had better than your neighbor. This, in turn, would inspire a movement among the artists: pop art.
Developed in the mid-50’s and rooted in the Dada movement, pop art was art that responded to trends in everyday life. Artists took inspiration from the conflict with the Soviet Union, consumerism, and the beginnings of the counterculture that would take hold during the 60’s. Many artists directly used materials and images from mass goods and media. For example, Andy Warhol’s famous prints include depictions of Marilyn Monroe, Campbell’s soup cans, and dollar signs. Artistic style was mostly characterized by realism with bold colors and using printmaking to produce multiple copies of their artwork. This was a reflection of the commercialism of the time, and how mass production was so easy to do that artistic originality was basically dead. Many artists began to use different types of mixed media in order to better connect history, culture, and art with each other.
Pop art first displayed in New York, and really took off during the 60’s in Los Angeles. Pop art was not limited to just America, many British artists took the style as well and began producing artworks in the same vein. However, American pop art tended to be more disillusioned with the incessant marketing of society, and tones tended to be more dramatic. As an example, Roy Lichtenstein, an American artist, had a style that was heavily influenced by comic books, which were a popular form of mass production of the time. Since Britain was still recovering from World War II at the time, their society tended to be less commercialized, as did their art.
Pop art did not necessarily criticize popular culture, it merely explored and took from it. In previous decades, American art had been heavily influenced by nature and religion, like the Transcendentalism of Henry David Thoreau. In the 50’s, however, mass media made it so that American artists were more exposed to it. Pop art reflected the mass population’s own feelings, and was less avant garde in the way that a wider audience was already more connected to it. Clearly, the pop art movement was a response to the culture that had developed during the 50’s.
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