pop art

Or Pop Art

noun

1. an art movement that began in the U.S. in the 1950s and reached its peak of activity in the 1960s, chose as its subject matter the anonymous, everyday, standardized, and banal iconography in American life, as comic strips, billboards, commercial products, and celebrity images, and dealt with them typically in such forms as outsize commercially smooth paintings, mechanically reproduced silkscreens, large-scale facsimiles, and soft sculptures.

pop art

noun

1. a movement in modern art that imitates the methods, styles, and themes of popular culture and mass media, such as comic strips, advertising, and science fiction

pop art

1. Art that uses elements of popular culture, such as magazines, movies, popular music, and even bottles and cans. (See also Andy Warhol.)

Other Word Forms

• pop artist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of pop art¹

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

Like his Kitchen Video, film themes extend throughout the apartment, for which he pays $2,060 a month, including a Pop Art painting of David Byrne from “True Stories” and a print of Brandon Bird’s oil painting “No One Wants to Play Sega With Harrison Ford” in the living room.

From Los Angeles Times

An estimated 17 million people come to Disneyland annually to dream, to play and to admire American pop art at its most optimistic.

From Los Angeles Times

Charlotte is always tightly seamed and belted, while Lisa, a filmmaker, wears bright colors and straddles the line between adventurous pop art flair and polished affluence.

From Salon

In the 1960s, Goode’s work was uncomfortably tagged as Pop art.

From Los Angeles Times

She was drawn to the bold graphics of Pop Art, making serigraphs so that her work would be affordable.

From Los Angeles Times