Pop artist Andy Warhol who coined the phrased “fifteen minutes of fame” was a larger than life public figure. He began his journey into the arts as a commercial illustrator before he became one of the leading artist to introduce to the world an art movement called “pop art”. Andy was not only an accomplished painter, but he also was a distinguished filmmaker making avant-garde underground films shot mostly in his studio called The Factory.

Pop Art challenged traditional art by taking popular cultural icons and mass producing them in mix media formats – two-dimensional on canvas and paper as well as third dimensional sculptures. Through silkscreen, artists appropriated American culture from everyday products to comic books. In his earliest of shows Andy displayed his famous Campbell’s Soup Cans. Pop artists  like Claes Oldenburg took familiar icons and made over-the-top public sculptures. Roy Lichenstein transformed snippets from comic books and popular advertising slogans and made that his art. Jasper Johns Americana icons were flags, maps and targets that led the art community away from Abstract Expressionism toward Pop Art and Minimalism.

Today Pop Art can be seen in reproductions from children’s pajamas to t-shirts in low-cost department stores worldwide. So the movement lives but it’s not quite the same as when these American giants ruled the art world.