A trio on a global scale, three great figures in the history of Pop Art!
The exhibition presents more than 150 original posters designed by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Keith Haring; the emblematic figures who democratized Art by taking it out of the elitist classes of the time.
Locomotives of the Pop Art movement, Roy, Keith, and Andy illustrate through their distinctive styles the richness of one of the art forms that best showed the way to many transgressive artists.
Major projects, emblematic commissions, personal commitments, and exceptional inspirations are on the menu of a selection never seen in Belgium.
Pop Master also traces the evolution of society in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Behind the artistic work, Pop Art has the ability to tell fascinating stories.
THE POPE
Andy Warhol, born in Pittsburgh in 1928, was already a successful illustrator in New York when in 1961 he decided to become a visual artist. Like Roy Lichtenstein or Claes Oldenburg before him, Warhol chose motifs from the media world, which he reproduced in his preferred silkscreen technique in various sizes and colours.
His series of Campbell soup cans, Marilyns or Flowers are well known around the world. In 1962 he turned his studio into the famous Factory, where actors and artists lived and worked with him as “superstars”.
The artist had an ambivalent relationship with posters, because as prints they were dangerously close to his serial silkscreen paintings. He rarely created original poster designs, but rather had the colours changed in the prints that were often requested by clients.
However, Warhol loved publicity, he sought proximity to film and music stars, and here poster prints certainly suited him. More than 150 posters appeared between 1964 and 1987, when Warhol died unexpectedly after an operation.
THE PRECURSOR
Roy Lichtenstein was born in New York in 1923. He attended art school and began painting with moderate success. In 1961 – Lichtenstein was already 38 years old – he came up with the idea of painting banal motifs from comics and advertisements.
The following year, the gallery owner Leo Castelli exhibited these works, which were very provocative at the time – and sold them in no time.
Lichtenstein developed his characteristic method of filling surfaces with regularly placed rows of dots. The dots are modeled on the halftone dots used in offset printing. They give the paintings a machine-like character.
Until 1965, Lichtenstein chose motifs based on comics, then he began to develop new series of works, such as the ‘Modern Paintings’, interpreting the Art Deco style, or the Brush Strokes, a commentary on the abstract painting of some of his colleagues.
As a famous artist, Lichtenstein frequently received requests for poster designs – around 70 were created between 1962 and 1996. Roy Lichtenstein died in New York in 1997.
THE URBAN ICON
Keith Haring, born in 1958 in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, went to New York when he was twenty and studied at the renowned School of Visual Arts. But he was more interested in street art. In 1980 he began the “Subway Drawings,” white chalk drawings on posters covered with black paper.
He was part of the sprayer scene and developed the ‘radiant baby’ tag. In 1982, gallery owner Tony Shafrazi offered him his first solo exhibition, and within two years he was successful around the world.
His style, inspired by comics and street art, was unmistakable. Haring developed an astonishing power with his black lines and used them to address the major issues of the day.
Posters were an important medium for him to spread his messages. In 1990, at the age of only 32, Haring died of AIDS. Between 1982 and 1989 he designed over 100 posters.
