Pop Art began in London in the mid-1950s, but from the very start its imagery was largely based on American mass media, which is why it is often thought of as being a movement that started in America.
Pop Artists had several motivations: to reflect the times they lived in; to find art in commonplace every-day objects – soup cans, hot dogs, cars and so on and to reflect the dynamic world of the media, film, advertising and comic books.
Perhaps the most important of the American pioneers of Pop Art is Jasper Johns (1930-present). Born in Augusta, Georgia, Johns didn’t take any formal art lessons as a child but he knew he wanted to be an artist. In 1949 he moved to New York City to study at the Parsons School of Design. There were a lot of artists working in the city at that time and Johns made friends with some of them. He was drafted into the army soon after arriving in New York City, however.
When he returned from the war, Johns began to experiment with different styles. At the time, Abstract Expressionism (the movement that included Jackson Pollock) was the popular artistic style. For the Abstract Expressionists, art was all about showing emotion. Johns work is the opposite. This may be one reason his art became as popular as it did.
Johns painted objects that everyone could recognize, like flags, numbers (and more numbers), targets, and maps. The paintings don’t show Johns’ opinions. In fact, the artwork may not have any particular meaning at all. His paintings show us things that we have seen hundreds of times and often just ignore. But we don’t ignore Johns’ paintings. Instead, we study them and find new meaning in the objects he shows us.
Johns has created more than just paintings. He has also made prints of his artwork and he has created sculptures out of found objects.
On February 15, 2011, Jasper Johns became the first painter or sculptor to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom since Alexander Calder in 1977. President Barack Obama presented the award.
This video explains how it’s not just a simple painting of a flag:
