Pop Art
Lippard, Lucy R. with contributions by Lawrence Alloway, Nicolas Calas, and Nancy Marmer. Pop Art. Frederick A. Praeger, 1966. Hardbound. Cover design by James Rosenquist. Author photo by Ray Donarski. Bowery Boys Rosenquist and Donarski met in the 1950s at the Art Students League, and spent several years sharing a chauffeur job ('I lived in the lap of luxury with very little money . . .' Rosenquist said, 'bopping around in a ’56 Lincoln town car and a ’56 Lincoln convertible with big fins on the car, great big fins'), before Rosenquist switched to employment as a billboard painter. That commercial work would go on to influence Rosenquist's large-scale art pieces, as well as this jacket design (the cover photography is credited to Melvin Sokolsky), which juxtaposes neon tubing with closeups of spaghetti and suburban lawns in a manner that popular aesthetics would echo for decades. Lippard (who founded influential art collectives including West-East Bag, Printed Matter, the Heresies Collective, and Political Art Documentation/Distribution), includes both Rosenquist and Donarski in this dynamic compendium, as well as artists ranging from Marisol Escobar to Alex Katz, from Rosalyn Drexler to Claes Oldenburg.
