Pop Art was a movement that started in Britain and the U.S in the 1950’s. It used the images and techniques of mass media, advertising, and popular culture often in an ironic way. Works of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldendurg exemplify this style. Pop art was brought to attention by the "one-person" shows of Claes Oldenburg, and Jim Dine in December 1961-1962. There was so much commentary that Pop Art required it’s own "instant art history." Dine and Oldenburg created a big sensation with their work by representing artifacts of daily life. The ideas and techniques came from billboards, commercial products, automobiles, strip malls, fast food, television, comics, print, film, packaging, and glossy magazines. The paintings and sculptures were often images of images, copies of copies, and twice removed effects. They often used techniques common in media, mass production, and marketing. Photo transference is a special technique used by Pop Artists. It allowed them to replicate photos on to the canvas, using lighter fluid as a solvent (a substance capable of dissolving other substances) absorbing the image, and then rubbing the reverse side to transfer it on to the canvas. The American Pop Artists of this time period included Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, George Segal, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, James Rosenquist, Robert Indiana, Richard Artschwager Marisol, Ed Ruschca, and most importantly, Andy Warhol. The artists made themselves well known by interviews in leading magazines, and being highly visible in social situations. Andy Warhol was the most prominent American Pop Artist of the 1960’s. Warhol was considered a very complex individual. He forever altered the relationship between art and society through his bold love of famous people, money, and superstar status. Warhol’s images were never exhibited in any galleries until 1965. New York dealers who shunned his work refusing to believe that it was high quality art rejected the pop images. He became accepted when his Dollar Bill painting appeared in Eleanor Ward’s New York stable gallery. Being challenged by Eleanor to paint a two-dollar bill and knowing his future career could depend on it, Warhol produced a repeated image of the face and reverse side of the bill. Fame was his when he painted the Campbell’s Soup Can. By far his boldest work because it reminded him of eating soup as a child. In the beginning this new sensation was treated as a "freakish fad", but easier to write about than abstract art. It was featured in Time, Newsweek, Life and many other popular newspapers. Considering it was a new movement, public acceptance was uncommonly easy. People who knew little about art accepted the familiar objects it represented. Within two years of Pop Art’s debut it was in museum shows, catalogues, and was featured in essays and art magazines. It was also popular in the mass media. Pop Art appealed to a broader audience of consumers. The different techniques captured the interest of the art-conscious, the fashion minded, and the general public. To the artists, Pop Art was another product in the consumer landscape. Most art dealers liked it because it brought in a whole new generation of collectors: people that collected purely for their social status. Pop Art was so different from what people were accustomed to. In this time of war, and hate no one could have imagined that something as simple as a piece of art could unite generations, and classes of people. It changed from the homespun soldiers of Norman Rockwell to the commercialistic effect of Andy Warhol. So different, in fact, that it changed the art scene forever. It really was a "Work of Art."
Bibliography "The ABC’s of Pop Art- Pop Artists and their Legacy" Online. Available http://www.fsus.fsu.edu/popart/style.html. Florida State University: Museum of Fine Art.2000 Accessed 20 March 2001 Phillips, Lisa. The American Century and Culture 1950-2000. New York: W.W Norton and Co., 1999.
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When people think of art they 
think
of rare and beautiful pieces, such as the Mona Lisa, and Starry, Starry Night in
extravagant golden frames. However in the 1960’s all that was changed. After years of
abstract expressionism a new art fell into place, and Pop Art was born.