Preview our SPRING 2026 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
FUNDACIóN COLECCIóN THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA
Pop Art Myths
Edited by Paloma Alarcó. Text by Paloma Alarcó, Francisco Calvo Serraller, Thomas Crow.
Pop Art Myths revisits Pop from a twenty-first-century perspective, bringing together more than 100 works by artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake, Robert Rauschenberg, Tom Wesselmann, Alex Katz, Mimmo Rotella, Eduardo Arroyo, Vija Celmins, Öyvind Fahlström and Gerhard Richter. The exhibition and catalogue attempt to survey Pop art through the revelation and deconstruction of the myths the artists constructed around themselves and the movement, about its apparent superficiality, and its implied irony and critique (or lack thereof). Also included are texts by art historians Francisco Calvo Serraller and Thomas Crow.
"Marlon"(1966), by Andy Warhol, is reproduced from Pop Art Myths.
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"Tom Wesselmann, one of the first Pop artists to take an interest in the theme of feminine sensuality, confessed, 'I like to think that my work is about all kinds of pleasure.' In 1961 he began work on the series that would best define his output, Great American Nudes, in which he limited his palette to the colors of the American flag, red, white, and blue, along with other colors that he considered 'patriotic,' like the gold on the flag's cord or the khaki of military uniforms…" Who better to feature over Memorial Day weekend, and what better art movement? Featured image, "Great American Nude #52" (1963), and the above excerpt from Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza curator Paloma Alarcó's text, are reproduced from Pop Art Myths. "By flattening out the shape of the body against the picture plane, Wesselmann creates a certain abstract, depersonalized quality that contrasts with the fleshy treatment of the erogenous zones, the pubis, the prominent breasts, and the full lips, which, as in the majority of his compositions, turns his painting into an allegory of woman as sexual symbol." continue to blog
"It is the Playboy 'Playmate of the month' pull-out pin-up which provides us with the closest contemporary equivalent of the odalisque in painting. Automobile body stylists have absorbed the symbolism of the space age more successfully than any artist. Social comment is left to TV and comic strip. Epic has been synonymous with a certain kind of film and the heroic archetype is now buried deep in movie lore. If the artist is not to lose much of his ancient purpose he may have to plunder the popular arts to recover the imagery which is his rightful inheritance." British Pop artist Richard Hamilton's 1961 statement is excerpted from Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza's excellent new survey, Pop Art Myths. "Man in Shower in Beverly HIlls" (1964), by Hamilton's compatriot David Hockney, is also reproduced from the book. continue to blog
Published by Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza. Edited by Paloma Alarcó. Text by Paloma Alarcó, Francisco Calvo Serraller, Thomas Crow.
Pop Art Myths revisits Pop from a twenty-first-century perspective, bringing together more than 100 works by artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake, Robert Rauschenberg, Tom Wesselmann, Alex Katz, Mimmo Rotella, Eduardo Arroyo, Vija Celmins, Öyvind Fahlström and Gerhard Richter. The exhibition and catalogue attempt to survey Pop art through the revelation and deconstruction of the myths the artists constructed around themselves and the movement, about its apparent superficiality, and its implied irony and critique (or lack thereof). Also included are texts by art historians Francisco Calvo Serraller and Thomas Crow.
