Pop Art

Abstract

Marisa Volpi Orlando’s Arte dopo il 1945, U.S.A. (1969) was the first Italian-language survey book of American art after the Second World War. In this chapter she discusses Pop art and introduces key artists (such as Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldenburg), influential anglophone critics (such as Leslie Fiedler, Lawrence Alloway, Alan Solomon and others) and galleries (Leo Castelli). The translation should be read with Silvia Bottinelli's essay on Volpi, published in this volume.

Keywords:

• Pop art
• Abstract Expressionism
• Robert Rauschenberg
• Jasper Johns
• Andy Warhol
• Leo Castelli
• art criticism and Pop art

Notes

1 Translator’s note: Rothko later listed the obstacles as “memory, history, or geometry, which are swamps of generalization from which one might pull out parodies of ideas (which are ghosts) but never an idea in itself,” Mark Rothko, “Statement,” The Tiger’s Eye, 9 (1949).

2 I use Newman’s own expressions, which he used to describe the experience of the European tradition, which the New York School aimed to surpass, Barnett B. Newman, “The Ides of Art, 6 Opinions on What is Sublime in Art?,” The Tiger’s Eye, 1.6 (Dec. 1948), 51–53. Translator’s note: Newman actually wrote “the wild eye of dream.”

3 For Rauschenberg, see also: V. Rubiu, “La materia dell’informale inesplosa nell’oggetto,” Collage, March 1964.

4 Both for Rauschenberg and for Johns, and for some aspects of Pop art, it is worth remembering a certain American nineteenth-century “Still Life” tradition, that was originally Flemish, but given particular surreal accents and d’assemblage: I refer to William Harnettt, John Haberle and John Peto. See the extraordinary documentation of Alfred Frankenstein’s article in Artform, October 1965. Naturally, the figure of Joseph Cornell is extremely important.

5 This quotation is a back translation from the Italian. The original source is Alan R. Solomon, “Four Germinal Painters”, in XXXII Esposizione Biennale Internazionale d`Arte Venezia 1964: United States of America. Four Germinal Painters: Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns. Four younger artists: Jim Dine, Frank Stella, Claes Oldenburg, John Chamberlain. (New York: Jewish Museum, 1964).

6 Leo Steinberg, Jasper Johns (New York: Wittenborn, 1963).

7 Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (New York: New Directions, 1945).

8 Translator’s note: In Painted Bronze (1960), Johns uses a Savarin coffee can not a paintbox as the model.

9 A. Boatto, Pop-Art in the U.S.A. (Milan: Lerici, 1967).

10 Barbara Rose and Irving Sander, “Sensibility of the Sixties,” Art in America (January–February 1967), 55.

11 John Rublowsky, Pop-Art (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1965), 93.

12 Rublowsky, Pop-Art, 70. Editor’s note: Oldenburg’s quotation has been traced to the original source in English.

13 Oldenburg’s words are taken from Rublowsky, Pop-Art, 62.

14 “Lichtenstein,” in Fantazaria, ed. Alberto Boatto and Giordano Falzoni (Rome: 1966), from a conversation between Lichtenstein and A. Solomon, 6. Editor’s note: the quotation has been traced to the original source in English.

15 Calvesi, Le due avanguardie (Milan: Lerici, 1966), and see: Un pensiero concreto, 1964-66, where some fundamental problems of the language of Pop art are examined.

16 E.H. Gombrich, Freud e la psicologia dell’Arte (Torino: Einaudi, 1967), 51. The square parentheses indicate the part added in the Italian publication, but not in Gombrich’s English version, see Id., “Psycho-Analysis and the History of Art,” The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, vol. XXXV (1954): 401-411 (404).

17 Alan R. Solomon, “An Interview with Luca Samaras,” Artforum, vol. 5, no. 2, October 1966.

18 See Jo Baer, “Edward Kienholz a sentimental journeyman,” Art International, vol. XII-4, April 1968.

19 Danny Bannard, “Present-Day Art and Ready-made Styles,” Artforum (December 1966): 32.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marisa Volpi Orlandini

Translated by Lucinda Byatt from Italian

Originally published as “La Pop-Art,” Arte dopo il 1945, U.S.A. (Rocca San Casciano: Cappelli, 1969), 68–86.