<P> American pop art is exemplified by artists: Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Wayne Thiebaud, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, Tom Wesselmann and Roy Lichtenstein among others . Lichtenstein's most important work is arguably Whaam! (1963, Tate Modern, London), one of the earliest known examples of pop art, adapted a comic - book panel from a 1962 issue of DC Comics' All - American Men of War . The painting depicts a fighter aircraft firing a rocket into an enemy plane, with a red - and - yellow explosion . The cartoon style is heightened by the use of the onomatopoeic lettering "Whaam!" and the boxed caption "I pressed the fire control...and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky ..." Pop art merges popular and mass culture with fine art, while injecting humor, irony, and recognizable imagery and content into the mix . In October 1962 the Sidney Janis Gallery mounted The New Realists the first major pop art group exhibition in an uptown art gallery in New York City . Sidney Janis mounted the exhibition in a 57th Street storefront near his gallery at 15 E. 57th Street . The show sent shockwaves through the New York School and reverberated worldwide . Earlier in the fall of 1962 an historically important and ground - breaking New Painting of Common Objects exhibition of pop art, curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum sent shock waves across the Western United States . </P> <P> While in the downtown scene in New York City's East Village 10th Street galleries artists were formulating an American version of Pop Art . Claes Oldenburg had his storefront and made painted objects, and the Green Gallery on 57th Street began to show Tom Wesselmann and James Rosenquist . Later Leo Castelli exhibited other American artists including the bulk of the careers of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and his use of Benday dots, a technique used in commercial reproduction . There is a connection between the radical works of Duchamp, and Man Ray, the rebellious Dadaists--with a sense of humor; and pop artists like Alex Katz (who became known for his parody's of portrait photography and suburban life), Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and the others . </P> <P> While throughout the 20th century many painters continued to practice landscape and figurative painting with contemporary subjects and solid technique, like Milton Avery, John D. Graham, Fairfield Porter, Edward Hopper, Balthus, Francis Bacon, Nicolas de Staël, Andrew Wyeth, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Philip Pearlstein, David Park, Nathan Oliveira, David Hockney, Malcolm Morley, Richard Estes, Ralph Goings, Audrey Flack, Chuck Close, Susan Rothenberg, Eric Fischl, Vija Celmins and Richard Diebenkorn . </P> <Ul> <Li> <P> Edward Hopper, The El Station (1908) Cityscape </P> </Li> <Li> <P> Balthus, 1934, figurative expressionism </P> </Li> <Li> <P> Francis Bacon, Head VI, 1949, British expressionism </P> </Li> <Li> <P> Edward Hopper, 1953, urban </P> </Li> <Li> <P> Milton Avery, 1958, seascape </P> </Li> </Ul>

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