Skip to main content

Pop Art Paintings

POP ART STYLE

Perhaps one of the most influential contemporary art movements, Pop art emerged in the 1950s. In stark contrast to traditional artistic practice, its practitioners drew on imagery from popular culture — comic books, advertising, product packaging and other commercial media — to create original Pop art paintings, prints and sculptures that celebrated ordinary life in the most literal way.

ORIGINS OF POP ART

CHARACTERISTICS OF POP ART 

  • Bold imagery
  • Bright, vivid colors
  • Straightforward concepts
  • Engagement with popular culture 
  • Incorporation of everyday objects from advertisements, cartoons, comic books and other popular mass media

POP ARTISTS TO KNOW

ORIGINAL POP ART ON 1STDIBS

The Pop art movement started in the United Kingdom as a reaction, both positive and critical, to the period’s consumerism. Its goal was to put popular culture on the same level as so-called high culture.

Richard Hamilton’s 1956 collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? is widely believed to have kickstarted this unconventional new style.

Pop art works are distinguished by their bold imagery, bright colors and seemingly commonplace subject matter. Practitioners sought to challenge the status quo, breaking with the perceived elitism of the previously dominant Abstract Expressionism and making statements about current events. Other key characteristics of Pop art include appropriation of imagery and techniques from popular and commercial culture; use of different media and formats; repetition in imagery and iconography; incorporation of mundane objects from advertisements, cartoons and other popular media; hard edges; and ironic and witty treatment of subject matter.

Although British artists launched the movement, they were soon overshadowed by their American counterparts. Pop art is perhaps most closely identified with American Pop artist Andy Warhol, whose clever appropriation of motifs and images helped to transform the artistic style into a lifestyle. Most of the best-known American artists associated with Pop art started in commercial art (Warhol made whimsical drawings as a hobby during his early years as a commercial illustrator), a background that helped them in merging high and popular culture.

Roy Lichtenstein was another prominent Pop artist that was active in the United States. Much like Warhol, Lichtenstein drew his subjects from print media, particularly comic strips, producing paintings and sculptures characterized by primary colors, bold outlines and halftone dots, elements appropriated from commercial printing. Recontextualizing a lowbrow image by importing it into a fine-art context was a trademark of his style. Neo-Pop artists like Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami further blurred the line between art and popular culture.

Pop art rose to prominence largely through the work of a handful of men creating works that were unemotional and distanced — in other words, stereotypically masculine. However, there were many important female Pop artists, such as Rosalyn Drexler, whose significant contributions to the movement are recognized today. Best known for her work as a playwright and novelist, Drexler also created paintings and collages embodying Pop art themes and stylistic features.

Read more about the history of Pop art and the style’s famous artists, and browse the collection of original Pop art paintings, prints, photography and other works for sale on 1stDibs.

55
to
335
2,047
615
496
567
1,196
916
726
386
410
355
762
1,049
Overall Height
to
Overall Width
to
45,443
37,039
19,248
7,881
3,469
3,045
2,962
2,269
1,252
1,181
1,176
1,164
446
225
1,361
863
654
579
361
196
195
157
150
134
111
96
89
84
82
79
77
75
75
75
1
321
2,640
1
1
15
41
86
83
146
65
57
42
36
2,465
1,806
1,802
1,161
1,096
Style: Pop Art
Paris Woman – Original Painting on canvas, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
One-of-a-kind Pop Art Original Painting on Canvas by Gardani available for you. Hand signed by the Artist front and back, comes with official Gardani Certificate of Authenticity with...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Ubisoft Assassin's Creed Florence (Licensed Original Painting)
Located in Montreal, Quebec
Assassin’s Creed® Florence reflects the rise of the Renaissance period in Florence and Ezio Auditore’s acceptance of his lineage into the Order of Assassins. With its incredible deta...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media, Oil

Love Question – Original Painting on Canvas, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
One-of-a-kind Original Painting on canvas by Gardani available for you. Hand signed by the Artist front and back, comes with official Gardani Certificate of Authenticity with a uniqu...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Anthropomorpher Hund II
Located in Wien, 9
Die Hinterglasmalerei zeigt eine anthropomorphe, weibliche Hundefigur. Eine gute Beherrschung der Technik ist beim Bild auffällig. Der Künstler/die Künstlerin zum Werk sind nicht be...
Category

1970s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Glass

Star Way – Original Painting on Canvas, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
One-of-a-kind Pop Art Original Painting on Canvas by Gardani, hand signed by the Artist front and back, comes with official Gardani Certificate of Authenticity with a unique dollar b...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Love finds you – Original Painting on canvas, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
One-of-a-kind Pop Art Original Painting on Canvas by Gardani, hand signed by the Artist front and back, comes with official Gardani Certificate of Authenticity with a unique dollar b...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Sweet Love – Original Painting on canvas, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
One-of-a-kind Pop Art Original Painting on Canvas by Gardani available for you. Hand signed by the Artist front and back, comes with official Gardani Certificate of Authenticity with...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Wonder Audrey – Original Painting on Canvas, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
One-of-a-kind Pop Art Original Painting on canvas by Gardani available for you. Hand signed by the Artist front and back, comes with official Gardani Certificate of Authenticity with...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

A Duck to Remember your House (inscribed and signed 3x by Slonem to Warhol muse)
Located in New York, NY
Superb provenance: gifted by Hunt Slonem to one of Warhol's muses. Hunt Slonem A Duck to Remember Your House By (inscribed and signed three times to Andy Warhol's friend Monique Van Vooren), 1991-2011 Watercolor on Paper Hand signed and dated recto, signed again verso; inscribed "Monique, a duck to remember your house by.Thank you for the birthday Love Hunt 2011" Unique work Frame included: held in the original artist's vintage wood frame Measurements: Framed: 12.5" x 10.5" x .5" Unframed 9.75" x 8" This work is hand signed three times by Hunt Slonem: once on the recto, once on the verso, and once following the written inscription. Provenance is impeccable as this cherished gift from Hunt Slonem was acquired from the estate of the actress and socialite Monique Van Vooren. The work was painted in 1991 (and dated 1991 on the recto), and was gifted by the artist to Monique in 2011, bearing a dated dedication verso. Monique Van Vooren (1927-2020) was a film and stage actress who enjoyed a long career with diverse roles ranging from the 1960s television series Batman to Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein...
Category

1990s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Permanent Marker

Picnic, 120x120 cm
Located in Yerevan, AM
Picnic 120x120 cm
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

"It's a Trap" Oil on canvas 30x24 Western cowboy POP art Southwest painting
Located in Southampton, NY
We are please to announce that we are now representing the Pop Art cowboy and cowgirl paintings of the artist Matt Straub. We at the gallery have been excited about the Pop Western p...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

I Love You, Babe, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
Romantic artwork for a loved one. Original acrylic painting on stretched canvas. Rich texture. Collage elements. Size 24 x 24 x 7/8". Professional natural cotton duck. Certifi...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

"Drop Your Guns" oil on canvas Cowboy Western POP art
Located in Southampton, NY
We are please to announce that we are now representing the Pop Art cowboy and cowgirl paintings of the artist Matt Straub. We at the gallery have been excited about the Pop Western p...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Heading to Missouri
Located in New York, NY
This piece was part of Mike Perry's show "IMPETUS MEETINGS WITH MYSELF: DANCING WITH DUCKLEGÅNGE" at the Richard Taittinger Gallery in 2021....
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

House Paint, Plywood

Mountain Meadows, Original Painting
Located in San Francisco, CA

Artist Comments
Rolling green hills unfold against mist-covered mountains in the morning light. Autumn trees adorn the landscape, casting long shadows on the vibrant field. The...

Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Sweet Opossum, Painting, Acrylic on Wood Panel
Located in Yardley, PA
These works are a celebration of the outcasts. Bats, snakes, raccoons, and others are presented in humorous settings that gently lift the fear and stigma imposed on them. Bright and ...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Lilly, Painting, Acrylic on Wood Panel
Located in Yardley, PA
Lilly "Allen" portrait of the famed singer. I usually do not do celebrities however this pose was too good to pass up. It was such a beautiful post it had to be done. What do you thi...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

War Mongers, Painting, Oil on Wood Panel
Located in Yardley, PA
War Mongers the start of my stenciling art career. This was a piece of wood that was spray painted accidentally from a sign we were painting red, it looked like the inverted Japanese...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Oil

John Lennon& Yoko Ono Celebrities Portraits Pop Art
Located in Norwalk, CT
Portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, powerful couple whose relationship is one of the most famously iconic. In my creation, I explored the essence of iconography wrapped in bursts ...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Oil, Acrylic

Smile
Located in Aberdeen Dyce, GB
Artist: Vadym Mykhalchuk Title: Smile Year: 2017 Style: Pop Art Materails: Oil on canvas Height: 100 cm Width: 80 cm
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

“Vulnerable Comfort”, 60x90 cm, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2021
Located in Yerevan, AM
“Vulnerable Comfort”, 60x90 cm, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2021
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Fancy Gen
Located in Aberdeen Dyce, GB
"Fancy Gen" is a very interesting artwork because the character is inspired by a real person the artist met in Miami. The character of Fancy Gen is simple yet very complex. He is ver...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Paper, Latex, Pigment

Croquet, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas
Located in Yardley, PA
This painting is acrylic on deep-profile canvas, wired and ready to hang. :: Painting :: Pop-Art :: This piece comes with an official certificate of authenticity signed by the artist...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

Louisiana Landscape with Two Oak Trees
Located in Metairie, LA
The Oak Tree defined Rodrigue’s early and beloved works, and this piece represented a return to his roots to create a stunning work in the color palate of the artist’s iconic Blue Do...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Oil, Canvas

Raccoon Shine, Painting, Acrylic on Wood Panel
Located in Yardley, PA
Shine bright with all of your flaws - just like a ruby. Original acrylic animal painting of raccoon as a trash panda king being blessed by a ruby gem. What is royalty matter when ...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

The Spiral of Life No. 2 - Minimalist Abstract 3D Textural Colorful Painting
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Playing with the interaction between positive and negative space, strong colors on neutral backgrounds, Canadian artist Virginie Schroeder creates pop art portraits and iconic pop cu...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Art is Not Obscene
Located in Natchez, MS
After having posted images of his own paintings online and receiving warnings for going against "community standards", Conde argues that the female form, the greatest artwork ever c...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Large Colorful Pop Portrait With Botanical Motifs. Man and Apple. "After-dinner"
Located in FISTERRA, ES
"After-dinner" is a figurative artwork by Moldovan-spanish artist Natasha Lelenco, created in acrylic on canvas. The work, featuring the artist's characteristic contemporary figurati...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Cotton Canvas, Spray Paint

‘Liberty’, 30x50 cm, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2021
Located in Yerevan, AM
‘Liberty’, 30x50 cm, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2021
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

"Shut Up and Kiss Me" Cowboy Western Pop art Oil on Canvas
Located in Southampton, NY
We are please to announce that we are now exclusively representing the Pop Art cowboy and cowgirl paintings of the artist Matt Straub. We at the gallery have been excited about the P...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas, Spray Paint

Looking Back To Venice Beach #10 - Colorful Environment Original Painting
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Italian artist Fabio Coruzzi merges painting and photography into one imaginative image that offers a new outlook on an otherwise ordinary urban scene. His artworks represent an auth...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Oil Pastel, Ink, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Archival Paper, Graphite

“Connecting to the Source”, 60 x 90 cm, acrylic and oil on cavas, 2021
Located in Yerevan, AM
“Connecting to the Source”, 60 x 90 cm, acrylic and oil on cavas, 2021
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

FANCY RIKI
Located in Aberdeen Dyce, GB
Alina Poloboc "FANCY RIKI"
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink

The Social Worker #11 - Colorful Figurative Original Painting
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Italian artist Fabio Coruzzi merges painting and photography into one imaginative image that offers a new outlook on an otherwise ordinary urban scene. His artworks represent an auth...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Oil Pastel, Ink, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Archival Paper, Graphite

'Ferragamo Balloon Dog', Pop Art, California, Jeff Koons, Inflatable Canine
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Paulo Montano' (American, 20th century) and painted circa 2015. A substantial, Jeff Koons derived Pop Art study of an iconic pink balloon dog on a Salvatore Ferragamo pedestal contrasted against a background of ivory curtains...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Magazine Paper, Canvas

Poolside at the Ocean View - Framed Original Artwork Mid Century Modern Pool
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Michael Giliberti’s original artworks are characterized by vivid colors and powerful compositions. His work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern wall art. The inspirations ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Mixed Media, Acrylic

Felipanda
Located in Milano, IT
The screenprint on paper by Felipe Cardeña, Felipanda is a work in a limited series of 100 copies. At the heart of the work is the figure of a smiling Panda with a green cap. The Ch...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Paper, Silk, Archival Pigment

Sul Americana
Located in Natchez, MS
Andres Conde at play with his favorite subject, women. Here the artist creates a beautiful and coy femme fatale in pop realism. Sul Americana is Portugues...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Coca Cola ... Si?! II - Painting Pop Art Red Green Purple Brown Blue Orange
Located in Sofia, BG
"Coca Cola ... Si?! II" is a painting by Maestro Vlado Vesselinov. About the painting: Style and Technic: POP ART, Contemporary, Gouache, oil on c...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Oil, Acrylic, Canvas, Gouache

Audrey 6. Celebrity lavender lime pop-art portrait of iconic Audrey Hepburn
Located in Norwalk, CT
Audrey Hepburn 6 is original oil on canvas created by Oksana Tanasiv in 2022. The size of canvas 30"X40". The artist captured iconic celebrity's seductive look who is holding her s...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Pink Diva
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
The past and present of “Living the Dream” make the case for the way art and its language of color, line, and shape enrich a viewer’s experience of the work and offer a delicate bala...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic

"Love Wild" - Contemporary Pop Surrealist Portrait with Cute Odd Little Monster
Located in FISTERRA, ES
"In 'Love Wild,' Natasha Lelenco engages in a playful and stylistic exploration with clear references to the recurring portraits of the early Renaissance, such as those by Giorgione, from a contemporary perspective and with the technical precision that characterizes her work. In this piece, she presents a character with a certain sexual ambiguity, lost in thought, snuggled up with a small creature, a little monster, and sporting tattoos on the fingers that read 'Love' and 'Wild,' a nod to Charles Laughton's famous film 'The Night of the Hunter...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas, Spray Paint, Acrylic

Angel with Heart, Peter Max
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: Peter Max (1937) Title: Angel with Heart Year: 2012 Medium: Acrylic on canvas Size: 12 x 6 inches Condition: Excellent Inscription: Signed by the artist Notes: Referenced in ...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Canvas

Fragmentos, Collage. Portrait Mixed Media.
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Fragmentos, 2023 Solvent transfers and acrylics on canvas Image size: 40 in. H x 30 in. W x 1.5 D Mixed media Mounted on a stretcher. _________________________________ Roberto Fonfrí...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Wood, Oil Pastel, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Graphite

Hidden Corner Donut Shop - Colorful Urban Environment Original Painting
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Italian artist Fabio Coruzzi merges painting and photography into one imaginative image that offers a new outlook on an otherwise ordinary urban scene. His artworks represent an auth...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Oil Pastel, Ink, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Archival Paper, Graphite

Monroe 7. Celebrity blue pop-art portrait of iconic Marylin Monroe
Located in Norwalk, CT
Marilyn Monroe 7 is original oil on canvas created by Oksana Tanasiv in 2022. The size of canvas 30"X40". The artist captured iconic celebrity's seductive look who is smoking a cig...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Cleopatra Seduction
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
Cleopatra is a central figure in this painting inspired by Elizabeth Taylor’s role in the Hollywood’s blockbuster 1963 film as a role model for Women to reach their potential. Her gr...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Spray Paint, Acrylic

Liberty Head, Peter Max
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: Peter Max (1937) Title: Liberty Head Year: 2005 Medium: Mixed Media on archival paper Size: 30 x 24 inches Condition: Excellent Inscription: Signed b...
Category

Early 2000s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Acrylic

Queen Elizabeth
Located in Norwalk, CT
The art "Queen Elizabeth" is Limited Edition of 25 canvas geclee prints on canvas in size 18″X24″. The print is covered by resin layer which protects the vibrancy of color pigments. ...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Resin, Canvas, Acrylic, Giclée

"Elvis", Denied Andy Warhol Silver & Black Pop Art Painting by Charles Lutz
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Elvis, Metallic Silver and Black Full Length Silkscreen Painting by Charles Lutz Silkscreen and silver enamel painted on vintage 1960's era linen with Artist's Denied stamp of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board. 82" x 40" inches 2010 Lutz's 2007 ''Warhol Denied'' series gained international attention by calling into question the importance of originality or lack thereof in the work of Andy Warhol. The authentication/denial process of the [[Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board]] was used to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED". The final product of the conceptual project being "officially denied" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Based on the full-length Elvis Presley paintings by Pop Artist Andy Warhol in 1964, this is likely one of his most iconic images, next to Campbell's Soup Cans and portraits of Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Liz Taylor, and Marlon Brando. This is the rarest of the Elvis works from the series, as Lutz sourced a vintage roll of 1960's primed artist linen which was used for this one Elvis. The silkscreen, like Warhol's embraced imperfections, like the slight double image printing of the Elvis image. Lutz received his BFA in Painting and Art History from Pratt Institute and studied Human Dissection and Anatomy at Columbia University, New York. Lutz's work deals with perceptions and value structures, specifically the idea of the transference of values. Lutz's most recently presented an installation of new sculptures dealing with consumerism at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater House in 2022. Lutz's 2007 Warhol Denied series received international attention calling into question the importance of originality in a work of art. The valuation process (authentication or denial) of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board was used by the artist to create value by submitting recreations of Warhol works for judgment, with the full intention for the works to be formally marked "DENIED" of their authenticity. The final product of this conceptual project is "Officially DENIED" "Warhol" paintings authored by Lutz. Later in 2013, Lutz went on to do one of his largest public installations to date. At the 100th Anniversary of Marcel Duchamp's groundbreaking and controversial Armory Show, Lutz was asked by the curator of Armory Focus: USA and former Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, Eric Shiner to create a site-specific installation representing the US. The installation "Babel" (based on Pieter Bruegel's famous painting) consisted of 1500 cardboard replicas of Warhol's Brillo Box (Stockholm Type) stacked 20 ft tall. All 1500 boxes were then given to the public freely, debasing the Brillo Box as an art commodity by removing its value, in addition to debasing its willing consumers. Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." Leonard Bernstein in: Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art and traveling, Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994-97, p. 9. Andy Warhol "quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." Kynaston McShine in: Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13. In the summer of 1963 Elvis Presley was just twenty-eight years old but already a legend of his time. During the preceding seven years - since Heartbreak Hotel became the biggest-selling record of 1956 - he had recorded seventeen number-one singles and seven number-one albums; starred in eleven films, countless national TV appearances, tours, and live performances; earned tens of millions of dollars; and was instantly recognized across the globe. The undisputed King of Rock and Roll, Elvis was the biggest star alive: a cultural phenomenon of mythic proportions apparently no longer confined to the man alone. As the eminent composer Leonard Bernstein put it, Elvis was "the greatest cultural force in the Twentieth Century. He introduced the beat to everything, and he changed everything - music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution." (Exh. Cat., Boston, The Institute of Contemporary Art (and traveling), Elvis + Marilyn 2 x Immortal, 1994, p. 9). In the summer of 1963 Andy Warhol was thirty-four years old and transforming the parameters of visual culture in America. The focus of his signature silkscreen was leveled at subjects he brilliantly perceived as the most important concerns of day to day contemporary life. By appropriating the visual vernacular of consumer culture and multiplying readymade images gleaned from newspapers, magazines and advertising, he turned a mirror onto the contradictions behind quotidian existence. Above all else he was obsessed with themes of celebrity and death, executing intensely multifaceted and complex works in series that continue to resound with universal relevance. His unprecedented practice re-presented how society viewed itself, simultaneously reinforcing and radically undermining the collective psychology of popular culture. He epitomized the tide of change that swept through the 1960s and, as Kynaston McShine has concisely stated, "He quite simply changed how we all see the world around us." (Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 1996, p. 13). Thus in the summer of 1963 there could not have been a more perfect alignment of artist and subject than Warhol and Elvis. Perhaps the most famous depiction of the biggest superstar by the original superstar artist, Double Elvis is a historic paradigm of Pop Art from a breath-taking moment in Art History. With devastating immediacy and efficiency, Warhol's canvas seduces our view with a stunning aesthetic and confronts our experience with a sophisticated array of thematic content. Not only is there all of Elvis, man and legend, but we are also presented with the specter of death, staring at us down the barrel of a gun; and the lone cowboy, confronting the great frontier and the American dream. The spray painted silver screen denotes the glamour and glory of cinema, the artificiality of fantasy, and the idea of a mirror that reveals our own reality back to us. At the same time, Warhol's replication of Elvis' image as a double stands as metaphor for the means and effects of mass-media and its inherent potential to manipulate and condition. These thematic strata function in simultaneous concert to deliver a work of phenomenal conceptual brilliance. The portrait of a man, the portrait of a country, and the portrait of a time, Double Elvis is an indisputable icon for our age. The source image was a publicity still for the movie Flaming Star, starring Presley as the character Pacer Burton and directed by Don Siegel in 1960. The film was originally intended as a vehicle for Marlon Brando and produced by David Weisbart, who had made James Dean's Rebel Without a Cause in 1955. It was the first of two Twentieth Century Fox productions Presley was contracted to by his manager Colonel Tom Parker, determined to make the singer a movie star. For the compulsive movie-fan Warhol, the sheer power of Elvis wielding a revolver as the reluctant gunslinger presented the zenith of subject matter: ultimate celebrity invested with the ultimate power to issue death. Warhol's Elvis is physically larger than life and wears the expression that catapulted him into a million hearts: inexplicably and all at once fearful and resolute; vulnerable and predatory; innocent and explicit. It is the look of David Halberstam's observation that "Elvis Presley was an American original, the rebel as mother's boy, alternately sweet and sullen, ready on demand to be either respectable or rebellious." (Exh. Cat., Boston, Op. Cit.). Indeed, amidst Warhol's art there is only one other subject whose character so ethereally defies categorization and who so acutely conflated total fame with the inevitability of mortality. In Warhol's work, only Elvis and Marilyn harness a pictorial magnetism of mythic proportions. With Marilyn Monroe, whom Warhol depicted immediately after her premature death in August 1962, he discovered a memento mori to unite the obsessions driving his career: glamour, beauty, fame, and death. As a star of the silver screen and the definitive international sex symbol, Marilyn epitomized the unattainable essence of superstardom that Warhol craved. Just as there was no question in 1963, there remains still none today that the male equivalent to Marilyn is Elvis. However, despite his famous 1968 adage, "If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings" Warhol's fascination held purpose far beyond mere idolization. As Rainer Crone explained in 1970, Warhol was interested in movie stars above all else because they were "people who could justifiably be seen as the nearest thing to representatives of mass culture." (Rainer Crone, Andy Warhol, New York, 1970, p. 22). Warhol was singularly drawn to the idols of Elvis and Marilyn, as he was to Marlon Brando and Liz Taylor, because he implicitly understood the concurrence between the projection of their image and the projection of their brand. Some years after the present work he wrote, "In the early days of film, fans used to idolize a whole star - they would take one star and love everything about that star...So you should always have a product that's not just 'you.' An actress should count up her plays and movies and a model should count up her photographs and a writer should count up his words and an artist should count up his pictures so you always know exactly what you're worth, and you don't get stuck thinking your product is you and your fame, and your aura." (Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), San Diego, New York and London, 1977, p. 86). The film stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s that most obsessed Warhol embodied tectonic shifts in wider cultural and societal values. In 1971 John Coplans argued that Warhol was transfixed by the subject of Elvis, and to a lesser degree by Marlon Brando and James Dean, because they were "authentically creative, and not merely products of Hollywood's fantasy or commercialism. All three had originative lives, and therefore are strong personalities; all three raised - at one level or another - important questions as to the quality of life in America and the nature of its freedoms. Implicit in their attitude is a condemnation of society and its ways; they project an image of the necessity for the individual to search for his own future, not passively, but aggressively, with commitment and passion." (John Coplans, "Andy Warhol and Elvis Presley," Studio International, vol. 181, no. 930, February 1971, pp. 51-52). However, while Warhol unquestionably adored these idols as transformative heralds, the suggestion that his paintings of Elvis are uncritical of a generated public image issued for mass consumption fails to appreciate the acuity of his specific re-presentation of the King. As with Marilyn, Liz and Marlon, Warhol instinctively understood the Elvis brand as an industrialized construct, designed for mass consumption like a Coca-Cola bottle or Campbell's Soup Can, and radically revealed it as a precisely composed non-reality. Of course Elvis offered Warhol the biggest brand of all, and he accentuates this by choosing a manifestly contrived version of Elvis-the-film-star, rather than the raw genius of Elvis as performing Rock n' Roll pioneer. A few months prior to the present work he had silkscreened Elvis' brooding visage in a small cycle of works based on a simple headshot, including Red Elvis, but the absence of context in these works minimizes the critical potency that is so present in Double Elvis. With Double Elvis we are confronted by a figure so familiar to us, yet playing a role relating to violence and death that is entirely at odds with the associations entrenched with the singer's renowned love songs. Although we may think this version of Elvis makes sense, it is the overwhelming power of the totemic cipher of the Elvis legend that means we might not even question why he is pointing a gun rather than a guitar. Thus Warhol interrogates the limits of the popular visual vernacular, posing vital questions of collective perception and cognition in contemporary society. The notion that this self-determinedly iconic painting shows an artificial paradigm is compounded by Warhol's enlistment of a reflective metallic surface, a treatment he reserved for his most important portraits of Elvis, Marilyn, Marlon and Liz. Here the synthetic chemical silver paint becomes allegory for the manufacture of the Elvis product, and directly anticipates the artist's 1968 statement: "Everything is sort of artificial. I don't know where the artificial stops and the real starts. The artificial fascinates me, the bright and shiny..." (Artist quoted in Exh. Cat., Stockholm, Moderna Museet and traveling, Andy Warhol, 1968, n.p.). At the same time, the shiny silver paint of Double Elvis unquestionably denotes the glamour of the silver screen and the attractive fantasies of cinema. At exactly this time in the summer of 1963 Warhol bought his first movie camera and produced his first films such as Sleep, Kiss and Tarzan and Jane Regained. Although the absence of plot or narrative convention in these movies was a purposely anti-Hollywood gesture, the unattainability of classic movie stardom still held profound allure and resonance for Warhol. He remained a celebrity and film fanatic, and it was exactly this addiction that so qualifies his sensational critique of the industry machinations behind the stars he adored. Double Elvis was executed less than eighteen months after he had created 32 Campbell's Soup Cans for his immortal show at the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in July and August 1962, and which is famously housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In the intervening period he had produced the series Dollar Bills, Coca-Cola Bottles, Suicides, Disasters, and Silver Electric Chairs, all in addition to the portrait cycles of Marilyn and Liz. This explosive outpouring of astonishing artistic invention stands as definitive testament to Warhol's aptitude to seize the most potent images of his time. He recognized that not only the product itself, but also the means of consumption - in this case society's abandoned deification of Elvis - was symptomatic of a new mode of existence. As Heiner Bastian has precisely summated: "the aura of utterly affirmative idolization already stands as a stereotype of a 'consumer-goods style' expression of an American way of life and of the mass-media culture of a nation." (Exh. Cat., Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie (and traveling), Andy Warhol: Retrospective, 2001, p. 28). For Warhol, the act of image replication and multiplication anaesthetized the effect of the subject, and while he had undermined the potency of wealth in 200 One Dollar Bills, and cheated the terror of death by electric chair in Silver Disaster # 6, the proliferation of Elvis here emasculates a prefabricated version of character authenticity. Here the cinematic quality of variety within unity is apparent in the degrees to which Presley's arm and gun become less visible to the left of the canvas. The sense of movement is further enhanced by a sense of receding depth as the viewer is presented with the ghost like repetition of the figure in the left of the canvas, a 'jump effect' in the screening process that would be replicated in the multiple Elvis paintings. The seriality of the image heightens the sense of a moving image, displayed for us like the unwinding of a reel of film. Elvis was central to Warhol's legendary solo exhibition organized by Irving Blum at the Ferus Gallery in the Fall of 1963 - the show having been conceived around the Elvis paintings since at least May of that year. A well-known installation photograph shows the present work prominently presented among the constant reel of canvases, designed to fill the space as a filmic diorama. While the Elvis canvases...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Enamel

Bee Mindful No. 1 (Bees, Belgian Linen, Blue, Botanical, Botanical Art)
Located in Kansas City, MO
Katrina Revenaugh Bee Mindful No. 1 Archival Pigment Ink, Acrylic, Spray Paint and Oil Pastel on Stretched Belgian Linen with a Matte Varnish Year: 2021 Size: 46x36in Signed: On Vers...
Category

17th Century Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Oil Pastel, Acrylic, Spray Paint, Archival Ink, Varnish, Linen

Shenzhen. New Neighborhood.
Located in Aberdeen Dyce, GB
Artist: Vadym Mykhalchuk Title: Shenzhen. New Neighborhood. Year: 2017 Style: Pop Art Materails: Oil on canvas Height: 80 cm Width: 100 cm
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Coca-Сola
Located in Aberdeen Dyce, GB
Vadym Mykhalchuk "Coca-Сola" 2018
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Independence Day
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
A Modern female portrayed as the Statue of Liberty surrounded by modern motifs including cartoons, fashion items that suggest the chase for a material ...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Spray Paint, Acrylic

Life Takes Us Forever - Minimalist Abstract 3D Textural Colorful Painting
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Playing with the interaction between positive and negative space, strong colors on neutral backgrounds, Canadian artist Virginie Schroeder creates pop art portraits and iconic pop cu...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Canvas, Acrylic

Denied Andy Warhol Dollar Bill Painting / Charles Lutz
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Denied Andy Warhol Dollar Bill Painting / Charles Lutz silkscreen ink on linen with the Denied stamp of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Boar...
Category

Early 2000s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Linen, Acrylic

Denied Andy Warhol Flowers 5x5" on linen White Pop Art Painting by Charles Lutz
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Denied Warhol Flowers, (White) Silkscreen Painting by Charles Lutz Silkscreen and acrylic on canvas with Denied stamp of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board. 5 x 5" inches 2008 ...
Category

Early 2000s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Lollipops & Rainbows (Abstract, Blush, Colorful, Contemporary, Dreamy, Fun)
Located in Kansas City, MO
Katrina Revenaugh Lollipops & Rainbows Archival Pigment Ink, Acrylic and Spray Paint on Canvas Year: 2020 Size: 53.25x37.25in Signed: On Verso COA provided Ref.: 924802-1952 *on st...
Category

2010s Pop Art Paintings

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Archival Ink, Spray Paint, Acrylic

Pop Art paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Pop Art paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add paintings created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, orange, pink and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Steve Kaufman, Peter Max, Romero Britto, and Jasper Johns. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Canvas and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Pop Art paintings, so small editions measuring 10.5 inches across are also available. Prices for paintings made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1,960 and tops out at $59,625, while the average work sells for $7,688.

Recently Viewed

View All