ELI5: What Is Pop Art?

Pop Art is a fun style of art that takes ordinary things from our everyday lives and turns them into colorful, exciting museum masterpieces.

Long ago, artists mostly painted serious things like kings, queens, or quiet bowls of fruit. But in the 1950s and 1960s, some artists decided that the things we see, use, and buy every single day were just as special.

Instead of searching for fancy subjects, Pop artists looked around their own homes and neighborhoods. They made art out of:

• Snacks and groceries: Things like cans of soup, bottles of soda, and candy wrappers.
• Comic books: Bright cartoon panels with bold black lines and action words like "POW!" or "BAM!"
• Famous people: Movie stars, rock musicians, and familiar faces from television.
• Advertisements: Colorful posters, cereal boxes, and magazine pictures.

The famous artist Andy Warhol showed the world that a simple can of tomato soup could be art. Another artist, Roy Lichtenstein, painted pictures that looked like giant pages pulled right out of a comic book.

Pop Art teaches us that you do not need to visit a fancy castle to find art. Art is all around us in our everyday lives—in the supermarket, on TV, and even on your kitchen table!