Pop art developed in the turbulent cultural milieu of the early 1960s as a response to the brooding intellectual and emotional aspects of abstract expressionism. Originally a British movement of the mid-1950s, in American hands pop art became commentary on the mass production culture and the banality of everyday life. Artists like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldenberg utilized the images and production techniques of daily American life in a consumer society, transforming them into objects that were neither wholly real nor wholly art; in the process, they strove to make viewers aware of the extent to which advertising and the production/consumption cycle had come to dominate their lives.

The phrase "Pop Art" seems to have originated from two sources: from British artist Richard Hamilton's 1956 collage picture Just What is it that Makes Today's Homes so Different, so Appealing?, which featured a bodybuilder...