What is Pop Art - 7th April

The term "Pop Art" emerged from the pen of English critic Lawrence Alloway in the 1950s to describe what he viewed as a contemporary attitudinal shift in subject matter and techniques of art. Instead of rarefied content like Bible stories, myths, or legends that had traditionally been the subjects of Fine Art, Pop Art saw the increasing spread of corporate marketing through western culture as inspiration to take itself as the subject of artistic scrutiny — and that it was every bit as artistically worthy.

Beginning in England in the mid-1950s and America in early 1960s, Pop Art focused on everyday objects rendered through an adoption of commercial art techniques. In so doing, artists availed themselves of images and ideas culled from popular culture — i.e., movies, comic books, advertising, and especially, television — faithfully reproduced in all their mass produced glory. By making use of what had been dismissed as "kitsch" by the art establishment, Pop artists whose works were displayed in museums effectively thumbed their collective noses at the distinctions between "highbrow" and "lowbrow" art.

Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-pop-art.htm