Pop Art: A Colourful History

Description

Short, stylish and full of fresh material - an essential new guide to the ever-fashionable Pop Art movement, companion to the major Tate Modern exhibition Pop Art is the most important 20th-century art movement. A shift from the archetype to the stereotype, from the exalted to the everyday, it brought Modernism to the masses, making art sexy and fun with Coke cans and comics. Today, in our age of selfies and social networking, we are still living in a world defined by Pop. Full of brand new interviews with the most important living Pop Artists, Sooke's book traces the movement's surprising origins and describes the great works by Warhol, Lichtenstein and other key figures, revealing Pop's often overlooked global story, forgotten female artists, and afterlife today.

Alastair Sooke is the author of the biographies Henri Matisse- A Second Life and Roy Lichtenstein- How Modern Art was Saved by Donald Duck, both published by Penguin. He is art critic for the Daily Telegraph and is a popular BBC broadcaster. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

As befits its title, Alastair Sooke's introduction to pop art is a colourful little book that should appeal to aficionados and casual admirers alike ... a well-researched and authoritative introduction to the movement ... a hugely engaging read. -- Alexander Larman * The Observer * A great introduction to what reveals itself to be a shifting and elusive 'movement' * Time Out * A clear and lively outline of the history of pop art ... full of interesting facts and anecdotes that make the book (unlike so much art criticism) ... a pleasure to read. * The Sunday Times * Sooke is an immensely engaging character. He has none of the weighty self-regard that often afflicts art experts and critics; rather he approaches his subjects with a questioning, open, exploratory attitude -- Sarah Vine * The Times * A brilliant account . . . So poetically precise in its evocations of the cut-outs . . . so tender in its sympathy -- Peter Conrad on 'Henri Matisse: A Second Life'