pop art

American  

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.

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pop art British  

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

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pop art Cultural  

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

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Other Word Forms

• pop artist
  noun

Etymology

Origin of pop art

First recorded in 1960–65

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pop art

A pioneer in the pop art movement in the 1960s, Hockney established himself as a globally renowned painter and master draughtsman and kept painting, experimenting and exhibiting right up until his death.

From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026

His restless intellect and self-confidence propelled him toward color-soaked figurative work and not the abstract expressionism or pop art of many of his peers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

But now Peter Philips, a "key figure" in the international pop art movement who died in June 2025, is to be celebrated with an exhibition to showcase his work.

From BBC ● May 17, 2026

Warhol’s a radical like she is, choosing to move away from the pop art that made him famous toward experimental films.

From Salon ● Apr. 29, 2026

They lure you in with pop art, then offer you more.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 23, 2026