Saturday, November 3, 2007

Review: Pop Art Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery


I caught this show first thing on Saturday morning. It's a wonderful time to visit the National Portrait Gallery, as this early in the morning the exhibition space is still empty and you can have the place to yourself, enjoying an unblocked view of the works.

The show examines the role of portraiture within Pop Art bringing together key works by all the major Pop artists - Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein (USA) and Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton, David Hockney and Patrick Caulfield (UK)

Using images of the famous and the notorious taken from the media, the Pop Art portraits created a new breed of fantasy portraiture using the influences of popular art and culture.

Comic books, magazines and other modern mediums were the inspiration for the Pop Art Artists to create altered and transformed images of instantly recognisable faces. An obsession with celebrity and the changing influence of fame, the images are often warped versions of a very familar face or versions of the artist themselves put through the media celebrity filtered lens.

A truly inspiring exhibition - full of colour, wit and lateral thinking.

Pop Art Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery
11 October 2007 -20 January 2008
£7.00-£9.00

7 comments:

Unknown said...

...And a valid argument in the Guardian describing the photography ban at the National Portrait Gallery.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/13/pop.art.copyright

Karen Cinnamon said...

Very interesting article.

You should start your own blog, with such a welath of knowledge ;-)

Unknown said...

If only I wasn't posting/reccommending other people's articles! ;-)

I'm spending my time at MKP wisely on here!

It's a good articile though, eh? I often wonder why the Andy Warhol Trust are so vehemently against the reproduction of his works... wasn't that the whole point?!

Karen Cinnamon said...

IAbsolutely - I'm n full agreement.

Gosh you've been at MKP ages now - you've got stamina, man!

Unknown said...

I agreed to a month- which ends on 30th of this month so I should start eyeing up other jobs soon-ish!

Have we switched from facebook to your own sparkling and dazzling blog?

(I could be an M&S copywriter there- pass me the pen..)

Karen Cinnamon said...

You're right - we've got our very own Cinnamon Brainstorm Wall!

You could be the M&S corporate copywriter, you could be the M&S corporate blogger, the list is endless!

Anonymous said...

Interesting to know.