POP ART, OP ART, MINIMALISM,

AND CONCEPTUALISM
Pop Art in England
Richard Hamilton

30.1 Richard Hamilton, Just what

is it that makes today’s homes so
different, so appealing?
1956. Collage on paper,
10. × 9. in. (26.0 × 23.5 cm).
Kunsthalle, Tubingen, Germany
(Collection Zundel).
Pop Art in the United States

 Although Pop Art made its debut in London in 1956 and

continued in England throughout the 1960s, it reached its
fullest development in New York.
 In 1962 an exhibition of the New Realists at the Sidney
Janis Gallery gave Pop artists official status in the New York
art world. Pop Art, however, was never a homogeneous
style, and within this classification are many artists whose
imagery and technique differ significantly.
 Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg—are actually
transitional between Abstract Expressionism and Pop
Art, for they combine textured, painterly brushwork with a
return to the object.
Jasper Johns
Robert Rauschenberg
30.5 Robert Rauschenberg, Retroactive
I, 1963. Silk-screen print with
oil on canvas, 7 × 5 ft. (2.13 × 1.52 m).
Wadsworth Athenaeum,
Hartford, Connecticut (Gift of Susan
Morse Hilles).
30.4 Robert Rauschenberg, Black
Market, 1961. Canvas, wood,
metal, and oil paint, 59. × 50 × 4 in.
(152 × 127 × 10 cm). Museum
Ludwig, Cologne, Germany. Photo:
Reinisches Bildarchiv Koln,
rba_c007677.
30.7 Andy Warhol, Elvis I & II, 1964. Two panels. Synthetic polymer
paint and silk-screen ink on canvas, aluminum paint and silk-screen
ink
on canvas, each panel 6 ft. 10 in. × 6 ft. 10 in. (2.10 × 2.10 m). The Andy
Warhol Foundation, Inc. / Art Resource, NY. c 2011 The Andy
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York.
30.8 Roy Lichtenstein,
Torpedo . . . Los! 1963. Oil on
canvas,
5 ft. 8 in. × 6 ft. 8 in. (1.73 × 2.03
m). c Estate of Roy
Lichtenstein.
Tom Wesselmann

30.9 Tom Wesselmann, Great American Nude No. 57, 1964. Synthetic polymer on
composition board, 4 ft. × 5 ft. 5 in. (1.22 × 1.65 m). Whitney Museum of American
Art, New York (Purchase).
Wayne Thiebaud

30.10 (Above) Wayne Thiebaud,

Thirteen Books, 1992. Oil on panel,
13 × 10 in. (33.0 × 25.4 cm). Allan Stone
Gallery, New York.
Sculpture

 Generally included among the leading New

York Pop artists are the sculptors Claes
Oldenburg (born 1929) and George Segal
(1924–2000).
 Although both can be considered Pop artists
in the sense that their subject matter is
derived from everyday objects and the media,
their work is distinctive in maintaining a sense
of the textural reality of their materials.
George Segal
30.11 George Segal, Portrait of
Sidney Janis with Mondrian
Painting,
1967. Plaster figure with
Mondrian’s Composition, 1933, on
an easel.
Figure: 66 in. (167.6 cm) high;
easel: 67 in. (170 cm) high;
overall:
697⁄8 × 56. × 27. in. (177.5 × 142.9 ×
69.2 cm). The Sidney and
Harriet Janis Collection
(653.1967.a–b). Museum of
Modern Art,
New York. c 2010 Mondrian
/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR
International,
Virginia, USA. Art c The George
and Helen Segal Foundation
/ Licensed by VAGA, New York,
NY. Janis was Segal’s dealer
and a champion of the avant-
garde. He mounted exhibitions of
Claes Oldenburg
30.12 Claes Oldenburg,
Clothespin, Central Square,
Philadelphia, 1976. cor-ten
and stainless steel, 45 ft. ×
6 ft. 3. in. × 4 ft. 4 in. (13.7 ×
1.92 × 1.32 m). This is one of
several “projects for colossal
monuments,”
based on everyday objects,
that Oldenburg proposed for
various cities. Others include a
giant Teddy Bear
for New York, a Drainpipe for
Toronto, and a Lipstick for
London (presented to Yale
University in 1969).
Oldenburg says that he has
always been “fascinated by
the values attached to size.”
Niki de Saint-
Phalle

30.13 Niki de Saint-Phalle, Black Venus, 1965–67.

Painted
polyester, 110 × 35 × 24 in. (279.0 × 88.5 × 61.0 cm).
Whitney Museum of American
Art, New York (Gift of
Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation).
 Marisol Escobar

30.14 Marisol Escobar, The Last Supper (installed at the Sidney Janis Gallery), 1982.
Wood, brownstone, plaster, paint, and charcoal,
10 ft. 1 in. × 29 ft. 10 in. × 5 ft. 7 in. (3.07 × 9.09 × 1.70 m). Photo courtesy of Carroll
Janis, New York. Art c Marisol Escobar /
Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
Op Art

 Another artistic movement that flourished during the

1960s has been called Optical, or Op, Art. In 1965 the
Museum of Modern Art contributed to the vogue for the
style by including it in an exhibition titled “The Responsive
Eye.”
 But Op Art is akin to Pop Art in rhyme only, for the
recognizable object is totally eliminated from Op Art in
favor of geometric abstraction, and the experience is
exclusively retinal.
 The Op artists produced kinetic effects using
arrangements of color, lines, and shapes, or some
combination of these elements.
30.15 (Left) Bridget Riley, Aubade (Dawn), 1975. Acrylic on linen, 6 ft. 10 in. × 8 ft. 1.
in. (2.08 × 2.73 m). Private collection. c Bridget Riley 2010. All rights reserved. Courtesy
Karsten Schubert, London.
Minimalism

 Sculptures of the 1960s “objectless” movement were called

“minimal,” or “primary,” structures because they were
direct statements of solid geometric form.
 In contrast to the personalized process of Abstract
Expressionism, Minimalism, like Color Field painting, tries
to eliminate all sense of the artist’s role in the work, leaving
only the medium for viewers to contemplate.
 There is no reference to narrative or to nature, and no
content beyond the medium itself.
 The impersonal character of Minimalist sculptures is
intended to convey the idea that a work of art is a pure
object having only shape and texture in relation to space.
Donald Judd
Dan Flavin
30.17 Dan Flavin, Untitled (in Honor of Harold Joachim), 3, 1977. Pink, yellow,
blue, and green
fluorescent light, 8 ft. (2.44 m) square across a corner. Photo: Florian Holzherr.
Courtesy
Dia Art Foundation. Collection Dia Art Foundation, New York.
Agnes Martin

30.18 (Above) Agnes Martin,

Untitled #9, 1990. Synthetic
polymer and graphite on canvas, 6
× 6 ft. (1.83 × 1.83 m).
Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York (Gift of the
American Art Foundation 92.60).
Eva Hesse

30.19 Eva Hesse,

Metronomic
Irregularity I, 1966.
Painted wood,
Sculp-Metal, and
cotton-covered wire, 12
× 18 × 1 in. (30.5 × 45.7 ×
2.5 cm).
Conceptualism

 The Conceptual artists of the 1960s wanted to extend

minimalism so that even the materials of art would be
eliminated, leaving only the idea, or concept, of the art. Like
Duchamp and the Dadaists, for the Conceptualists the
mental concept takes precedence over the object. This is also
related to the Minimalist rejection of the object as a
consumer product.
 Although the term itself was coined in the 1960s, Conceptual
art attained official status through the 1970 exhibition at the
Museum of Modern Art, in New York. The show’s title—
Information—reflected the emphasis of Conceptual art on
language and text, rather than on imagery.
Joseph Kosuth

30.20 Joseph Kosuth, Art as

Idea as Idea, 1966.
Mounted photostat, 4 × 4 ft.
(1.22 × 1.22 m).
 Sol LeWitt

30.21 Sol LeWitt, Serial Project, I (ABCD), 1966. Baked enamel on steel units over
baked enamel on aluminum,
1 ft. 8 in. × 13 ft. 7 in. × 13 ft. 7 in. (50.8 × 398.9 × 398.9 cm). Museum of Modern Art,
New York.
Action Sculpture:
Joseph Beuys

30.23 Joseph Beuys, Coyote, I Like

America and America Likes Me,
1974. Action sculpture, New York, one
view of a weeklong
sequence.