Pop Art Was Born in London, Not New York

Tate puts it plainly: pop art emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in America, and reached its peak in the 1960s.¹ The Americans made it famous. The British got there first.

In the winters of 1952–53 and 1953–54, a group of young artists, writers and architects met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. They called themselves the Independent Group.²

Among them were the artists Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi, the critics Lawrence Alloway and Reyner Banham, and the architects Alison and Peter Smithson.² What they shared was an interest in popular and commercial culture: magazines, cars, films, ads.²

In 1956 the Whitechapel Gallery in London held an exhibition called This Is Tomorrow. Twelve groups, each in principle a painter, a sculptor and an architect, built environments on the theme of modern living.³

Hamilton's team, known as Group 2, mixed popular imagery, including Robby the Robot from the science-fiction film Forbidden Planet, with optical illusions that played with the visitors' sense of space.³

For the catalogue, Hamilton made a small collage with a long title: Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? It was also used as the exhibition poster, and it has come to define the beginning of British pop art.³

By the late 1950s, America had its own pop artists.¹ Roy Lichtenstein blew up comic-strip panels, as in Whaam! (1963); Andy Warhol repeated Marilyn Monroe's face, as in the Marilyn Diptych (1962). Both works are now at Tate.¹

The paintings of Hamilton, Paolozzi, Lichtenstein and Warhol are still protected by copyright, so we can't show them here. The links in the notes lead to the museums that hold them.

Pop art loves a white wall. One bold canvas, with nothing competing around it, gives a room energy without clutter. Hang it at the usual 57 inches to the center, and let the color do the talking.

Pick one or two of its colors for a cushion or a lamp, and the room will feel designed rather than loud.