The American Pop Art movement emerged in the 1960s. Trained in commercial arenas, Pop artists countered the cultural dominance of Abstract Expressionism by eliminating any evidence of painterly process. Moreover, exploiting commercial imagery, they incorporated the written word into their work. Over the past four decades, artists as diverse as Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Jim Shaw and Jack Pierson have utilized everyday words and images in their visual expression.

Trained as a commercial artist, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) established himself as part of the Pop Art movement in the early 1960s. During this period, he became widely recognized for his Campbell's Soup Can series, which confronted issues of brand identity and the proliferation of advertising imagery. His Soup Can Drawing (1964) purposefully conflates the categories of art and commodity.

Both Warhol and Ed Ruscha (b.1937) utilize serial repetition to inundate the viewer with visual and verbal images of the mundane. Letters, words, and phrases appear consistently in Ruscha's work. In his pieces Vowel #2 (June 9, 1996) and Vowel #22 (July 5, 1996), Ruscha reinforces his affinity for language, using book covers as his canvas. The relationship between Ruscha and his young contemporary Jim Shaw (b.1952) is revealed, as the cover of Shaw's book, Thrift Store Paintings, is the backdrop for Ruscha's Vowel #2. Shaw collected the paintings that culminated in this book project, which Ruscha published. An iconoclast by nature, Shaw seeks to heroize the banal and condemn the ostentatious. In Arrows (1991), he critiques the excesses of capitalism by suggesting a Milton Bradley-esque game in which white businessmen sipping martinis are shot with bows and arrows by Native American "savages."

Like Ruscha and Shaw, Jack Pierson (b. 1960) is interested in words. Unlike Ruscha, however, Pierson's word choices derive quite literally from his dreams. He creates works that haunt the viewer, reflecting upon and confronting emptiness, anger, anxiety and alienation. His piece, Everything You Ever Wanted (1994), is decidedly more personal than Ruscha's or Shaw's work. At first glance the crudely written phrase "everything you ever wanted" takes over the blank page. At second glance, one notices the subtly etched "didn't I give you," scratching the surface like a silent scream. This painful work reflects Pierson's personal struggle and articulates the desires that materialism will never fulfill.

Andy Warhol
American (1928 -1987)
Soup Can Drawing, 1964 Pencil on paper
Private Collection

Soup Can Drawing (1964) is an unusual example from Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can series. While Warhol is best known for his large, serial silkscreen productions, this piece is hand-drawn. Rarely do the Campbell's Soup Can pieces use modeling to convey depth and space. Soup Can Drawing, however, has a distinctive shadow. Warhol characteristically presents us with the packaging rather than the can itself. Unlike many of the soup can illustrations, in this drawing the lid has been opened and the contents seem to have been consumed. The drawing features the jagged edges of the lid after being pried open. This seeming violation stands in opposition to the pristine, dead-pan wholeness of Warhol's silkscreen images.

Peter Dumbadze

Jim Shaw
American (b.1952)
Arrows, 1991
Gouache on Board
Private Collection

Jim Shaw works in a variety of styles and media, often appropriating commercial imagery similar to that of Pop predecessors Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. In this piece, typical of his offbeat style, Shaw creates a mock game box, or perhaps a magazine cover. We are forced to question the relationship between overtly stereotyped images of Native Americans and businessmen sipping martinis. The image is not explicitly violent, however a man donning a cowboy hat suggests an unusual twist. In the background, he walks serenely through the doors with arrows jutting from his back, while the businessmen remain oblivious to the situation. Shaw's piece, oddly reminiscent of classic Cowboy and Indian films of the 1950s, offers an ambiguous narrative. The artist adds an unusual twist, locating the scene in a corporate setting.

Kate Coker

Ed Ruscha
American (b. 1937)
Vowel # 2, June 5, 1996
Acrylic on book cover
Private Collection

Ed Ruscha's Vowel # 2 merges his interest in the power of text with his fascination for the common object. One in a series of over one hundred paintings on book covers, Vowel # 2 presents words and letters as artistic subjects. Ruscha paints a large letter "O" in acrylic on the cover of the book Thrift Store Paintings. Ruscha published Thrift Store Paintings in 1990 on behalf of fellow artist and close friend Jim Shaw, who collected found American paintings. This collaborative piece demonstrates Ruscha's interest in bringing ordinary words, phrases and imagery to the attention of the viewer.

Leah Rogers