New Painting of Common Objects

Last updated
Poster for the exhibition. Common objects poster.jpg
Poster for the exhibition.

The exhibition "New Painting of Common Objects" at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1962 was the first museum survey of American pop art. The eight artists included were: Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Andy Warhol, Phillip Hefferton, Robert Dowd, Edward Ruscha, Joe Goode and Wayne Thiebaud. It was curated by Walter Hopps, who had given Andy Warhol his first solo show at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles the previous year. The show helped the pop art movement gain critical acceptance, [1] preceding the Guggenheim Museum's 1963 pop art exhibition "Six Painters and the Object", curated by Lawrence Alloway.

The artists

The artists came from different backgrounds. Thiebaud was a teacher at the University of California at Davis. Lichtenstein, Hefferton and Dowd had previously worked in the Abstract Expressionist style. Dine had been associated with Happenings in New York. Warhol had been a successful commercial artist. The youngest members of the group, old highschool friends Ruscha (24) and Goode (25), had recently left art school and were supporting themselves with graphic design work and odd jobs. [2] In particular, Ruscha worked as a layout artist for the Carson-Roberts Advertising Agency in Los Angeles.

Related Research Articles

Roy Lichtenstein 20th-century American pop artist

Roy Fox Lichtenstein was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the premise of pop art through parody. Inspired by the comic strip, Lichtenstein produced precise compositions that documented while they parodied, often in a tongue-in-cheek manner. His work was influenced by popular advertising and the comic book style. His artwork was considered to be "disruptive". He described pop art as "not 'American' painting but actually industrial painting". His paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City.

Pop art Art movement

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid- to late-1950s. The movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane mass-produced objects. One of its aims is to use images of popular culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony. It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques. In pop art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, or combined with unrelated material.

Wayne Thiebaud American painter (1920–2021)

Morton Wayne Thiebaud was an American painter known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects—pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs—as well as for his landscapes and figure paintings. Thiebaud is associated with the pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his early works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate the works of the classic pop artists. Thiebaud used heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements are almost always included in his work.

Jim Dine is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and photography; his early works encompassed assemblage and happenings, while in recent years his poetry output, both in publications and readings, has increased.

Events from the year 1962 in art.

Edward Joseph Ruscha IV is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. Ruscha lives and works in Culver City, California.

Mel Ramos American painter

Melvin John Ramos was an American figurative painter, specializing most often in paintings of female nudes, whose work incorporates elements of realist and abstract art.

John Coplans

John Rivers Coplans was a British artist, art writer, curator, and museum director. A veteran of World War II and a photographer, he emigrated to the United States in 1960 and had many exhibitions in Europe and North America. He was on the founding editorial staff of Artforum from 1962 to 1971, and was Editor-in-Chief from 1972 to 1977.

Gagosian Gallery Art gallery in Various

Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in Paris; one each in Basel, Beverly Hills, Rome, Athens, Geneva and Hong Kong.

<i>Campbells Soup Cans</i> 1962 artwork by Andy Warhol

Campbell's Soup Cans is a work of art produced between November 1961 and March or April 1962 by American artist Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20 inches (51 cm) in height × 16 inches (41 cm) in width and each consisting of a painting of a Campbell's Soup can—one of each of the canned soup varieties the company offered at the time. The non-painterly works were produced by a screen printing process and depict imagery deriving from popular culture and belong to the pop art movement.

Walter "Chico" Hopps [1] was an American museum director, gallerist, and curator of contemporary art. Hopps helped bring Los Angeles post-war artists to prominence during the 1960s, and later went on to redefine practices of curatorial installation internationally. He is known for contributing decisively to “the emergence of the museum as a place to show new art.”

Robert Dowd (artist) American painter

Robert Dowd was an American artist, who also painted under the name Robert O'Dowd.

Phillip Hefferton was an American pop artist from Detroit, Michigan, known for his paintings of banknotes.

Joe Goode American painter

Joe Goode is an American artist. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1937. In 1959 he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he attended the Chouinard Art Institute until 1961.

Mara Devereux is an American artist.

The Ferus Gallery was a contemporary art gallery which operated from 1957 to 1966. In 1957, the gallery was located at 736-A North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. In 1958, it was relocated across the street to 723 North La Cienega Boulevard where it remained until its closing in 1966.

The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation is a non-profit arts foundation located on North Carolwood Drive in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California. Modern and contemporary artwork in the Frederick R. Weisman collection are displayed in a "living with art—house museum" context, with guided public tours by appointment with the foundation.

Jonathan Novak is an American art dealer.

Harold Moncreau Stevenson Jr. was an American painter known for his paintings of the male nude. He was a friend, a mentor, and an associate of Andy Warhol, and appeared in the Warhol film, Heat.

Michael Maloney (art dealer) American art dealer and appraiser

Michael Maloney is a Los Angeles-based art appraiser and art dealer. He owned and operated the Michael Maloney Gallery in Santa Monica, California (1985–90) and Maloney Fine Art in Culver City, California (2006–16), and since 1998 has pursued a career as an art appraiser and private dealer in Los Angeles and New York.

References

  1. Peter Plagens, Sunshine Muse: Art on the West Coast, 1945-1970, University of California Press, 2000 (p138). ISBN   0-520-22392-6
  2. John Coplans, The New Paintings of Common Objects, Artforum, November 1962.