Pop Art: A Critical History (The Documents of Twentieth-Century Art) (Paperback)

~ Steven Henry Madoff (Editor) "Larry Rivers in a house in Greenwich Village on a street crowded with bars and coffeehouses behind the New York University Law School building..." (more)
Key Phrases: pop painters, artistic identification, other pop artists, New York, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This not-to-be-missed anthology collects stimulating articles, interviews, and other texts defining "the phenomenon of Pop." Art critic Madoff contributes a fine introductory overview and then presents 94 critical articles, negative and positive, on this brash, vulgar, successful style. Most are culled from contemporary American art magazines and newspapers during the Pop era of the 1960s. Students and specialists alike will find overlooked or forgotten material here and will especially note that many early discussions still ring true today. The book's five sections are precursors, reviews dating from 1962 to 1970, major artists (Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Rosenquist, and Warhol), 11 artists on the periphery, and a few articles from the 1970s to the 1990s. Discussions of single artists are most interesting, with the one on Warhol a standout. There is heavy reading but also journalistic stylings that will appeal to anyone interested in American culture of the Sixties. Highly recommended.?Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A useful if dense compilation of texts illuminating Pop Art's historical origins, inception, rise to success, and legacy. Among the materials Madoff, former executive editor of ARTnews, has gathered is a terse, fascinating letter by the British artist Richard Hamilton concerning the 1957 ``This Is Tomorrow'' exhibition, regarded as the first Pop Art show. A 1958 article by Lawrence Alloway, who coined the term ``Pop,'' defiantly announces the vitality and importance of the mass arts, as opposed to the old elitist fine arts. Madoff next samples the critics' response to America's outbreak of Pop (which was initially referred to as Neo- Dada), including pieces on the ``four-headed goliath'' of the movement, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, and Oldenburg. The book's final section offers a handful of essays (by, among others, Roland Barthes and Robert Hughes) written up to 30 years after Pop's emergence. What comes through within this simple yet generous framework is a good measure of skepticism and fear about Pop's importance, mixed with some serious attempts to locate the meaning of art that mimicked our fascination with the representational image, an art nurtured by, in the words of Henry Geldzahler, the ``popular press, . . . the movie closeup, black and white, technicolor and wide screen, the billboard extravaganzas, and finally . . . television.'' There is clarity in Hamilton's analysis (Pop Art is, he writes, ``popular . . . transient . . . expendable''), as well as in the later essays, where distance aids the effort to define goals, impact, and meaning. But the bulk of the material has to be waded through, congested as it is with the struggle to process the onslaught of new media assailing the public. Readers will have to distill their own meaning and context for Pop Art from this anthology. It is not a cozy read, but a necessary compendium to slip on and off of the shelf. (8 color, 17 b&w illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (November 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520212436
• ISBN-13: 978-0520212435
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #222,789 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Not-to-be-missed anthology.... Highly recommended.", October 8, 1997

By A Customer

As the editor of this anthology, I wanted to pass on another review that the book has just received. My own quibble with the review from Kirkus is that I don't really understand why they would think that a 400-plus-page anthology of historical articles would be "a cozy read." The purpose of the book is to give a broad and deep view of what critics, journalists and art historians thought about Pop as it developed. It's not meant to be a page turner. It's meant to be a reference work full of useful and interesting pieces, some academic, some not. Here, in its entirety, is what "Library Journal" said: "This not-to-be-missed anthology collects stimulating articles, interviews, and other texts defining 'the phenomenon of Pop.' Madoff contributes a fine introductory overview, then presents 94 critical articles, both negative and positive, on this brash, vulgar, and successful style. Most are culled from contemporary American art magazines and newspapers--sometimes offering monthly entries--during the height of the Pop era of the 1960s. Students and specialists alike will find overlooked or forgotten material here and will especially note that many early discussions still ring true today. The book is divided into five sections: the precursors; reviews of work done from 1962 to 1970; the major artists (Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Rosenquist, and Warhol); 11 artists on the periphery; and, finally, a few articles from the 1970s to 1990s. Discussions of single artists are most interesting, and Andy Warhol remains a standout. There is heavy reading but also journalistic stylings that will appeal to anyone interested in American culture of the Sixties. Highly recommended.--Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson State Univ., Md (LJ 10/1/97)"

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best anthology of its kind, January 4, 2005

By	T. P. Uschanov (Helsinki, Finland) - See all my reviews

To put it briefly, I concur with the review from the Library Journal which the editor of the book quotes below. This is the best anthology of critical writing on Pop, and it largely supersedes previous ones such as Carol Mahsun's Pop Art: The Critical Dialogue. My only quibble is with the assertion in the editorial introduction that the work of Jim Dine and Tom Wesselmann is somehow "less incisive" (read "less impressive") than that of the "four-headed goliath named Lichtenstein-Oldenburg-Rosenquist-Warhol". It isn't, and neither is it less Pop than that of the goliath.