Pop Art Portraits

Reaching its pinnacle during the era of Marilyn Monroe and James Bond, Haight-Ashbury and Swinging London, Pop art reflected the ideals and aspirations of a generation. By the 1960s the movement’s bold imagery and style had become inseparable from the new consumer culture. This important book looks at British and American Pop art through the lens of portraiture, providing a fresh perspective on the movement and its innovative artists.

Blurring the boundaries between "high” and "low” culture, Pop artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, and Peter Blake elevated portraiture to a new position. Author Paul Moorhouse explores the artists’ engagement with portraits; their shared fascination with fame; their use of images from advertisements, rock music, films, and print sources; and the ways in which the British and American schools of Pop evolved and influenced one another. Bringing together key works from the peak years of Pop, this extensively illustrated book demonstrates how the conventions of portraiture were redefined as Pop artists transformed familiar images into transcendent works of art.