For this project I have chosen to look at two pioneers of sixties movement Pop Art,

Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. These two artists both made a name for
themselves in the sixties, particularly for the style of their works and through this
timeline I will display their progress and development within the sixties.

PopArt was a movement that had two sides the “euphoric, progress-orientated
prospects” and “pessimistic outlook on the other” (Osterwald p.6). There was a Pre-
Pop period and which progressed to where Warhol and Lichtenstein were considered
to have been part of the “commercial art, design and poster painting” (Osterwald
p.88). During this period Pop Art became a “reaction against abstract expressionism”
(Galenson p.269), which was the movement in prior years. Research carried out by
Galenson refers to a Warhol (1963) quote stating “The reason I am painting this way
is that I want to be a machine”, this being a blatant attempt to rouse an audience
whose goal is self-expressionism. His controversy didn’t stop at provoking his critics
he was an artist who openly liked money. Galenson goes on to say that Warhol
“yearned for the power to transmute everything he touched into something of greater
financial worth.”

Warhol in this the sixties created “Soup Cans” which created a buzz which was
“triggered by an article in Times magazine” (Galenson 2009, p.84) making him into
“The leader of a dominant new art movement” (Galenson p.84). During this stage of
Warhol’s career he could afford to have a personal assistant, Gerard Malanga. Being
in an informal design team has its perks of having someone to scrutinize the work and
help with additional changes. It raises a question of who really is the driving force of
the project? I think that as an artist he is about sharing his ideas and it may not matter
about the authorship but “what it does and how it does it” (Bierut M. et al 1997).

Warhol’s work from 1962 onwards saw him use mechanical techniques in his process.
Instead of having meticulously producing his work Warhol would use photographic
images and create innovative serial forms, which is clearly seen in his work “Blue
electric chair” and “Elvis I and II”. His ideology behind was that “what mattered was
not the appearance of the work but the idea that motivated them”(p.84 Galenson
2009).

Relatively during the same period Lichtenstein was also at a boom stage in his career.
He started creating comic style frames in large proportion. His use of ben-day dots
was not only effective in his work but he was also able to communicate his work
simply and effectively as stated by Harrison and “understood as a representation of
printed matter”
Bierut M., Drenttel W., Heller S., (1997) Looking closer: Critical writings on graphic
design, New York: Allworth Press

Galenson D.W., (2009) Conceptual Revolutions in the Twentieth – Century Art. New
York: Cambridge University Press

Harrison C., Wood P., (2003) Art in Theory, 1900 – 2000, An Anthology of Changing
Ideas, USA: Blackwell Publishing

Osterwald T. (2007) Pop Art, Cologne: Tashen