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Handout created by S. Wagner-Marx Name: Pop-Art ala Roy Lichtenstein The Pop Art movement began in the early 1960’s as a way to appeal to the masses. Pop artists believed that art had become too individualized and hard to understand, so they used common everyday objects that people would easily recognize. In Pop Art we see subject matter taken right from American popular culture like soup cans, celebrities, hamburgers, and coke bottles. The movement forced people to notice the beauty of the ordinary things around them that they tended to take for granted. Images were often large and with shiny bold colors that were impossible to ignore. Roy Lichtenstein was a well-known Pop artist who created blown up images from old comic books. Originally trained as a commercial artist, Lichtenstein’s paintings mimicked techniques and processes used in the mass production of prints. His paintings are composed of bold outlines, lots of primary colors, and millions of Benday dots. (Benday dots are named for an American printer named Benjamin Day. Benday dots are in all printed images, but are usually too small to be seen by the naked eye.) Two things that Lichtenstein frequently portrayed in his artwork were the mindless violence and stereotyped romance in comic book imagery. For this project you will be imitating Lichtenstein’s artistic style. You will be creating a large image that somehow comments on American popular culture. You may get inspiration from comic books or comic strips, but I
