The Pop Art movement epitomizes the consumerism of the latter half of the 20th Century. The movements name, coined by English critic Lawrence Alloway, referred to the movements obsession with and depiction of popular culture. Regarded as a reaction to the "subject-less" works of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art used common everyday objects and commercial imagery and iconography as subject matter, and rejected any distinction between good and bad taste.
The movement was primarily based in New York and London. Along with the commercialism and trivial nature of the subject matter, Pop Art was also commonly produced using mass production, commercial techniques such as silkscreening and the now famous "ben-day" dots Roy Lichtenstein used to simulate the printing techniques used in newspaper and magazine presses.
The Pop Art master works are often seen as the symbol of mid to late 20th Century art. Andy Warhol's incredibly popular paintings of Campbell Soup cans and multi-colored silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe, along with Jasper Johns's multiple renderings of the American flag have all captured the imagination and interest of the art world and continue to inspire the infusion of pop culture into modern art.
