Most of us understand the concept of Pop Art. We think Marilyn Monroe and Campbell soup cans. We think of cool companies like My Pop Art, who provide Pop Artwork based on your best photographs. We also see Pop Art all around us. Just walk down the aisle of your local grocery store and Pop Art abounds; bold, vivid colors, wild, eye-catching graphics…all designed to entice the senses.

But did you know that Pop Art has a history prior to Andy Warhol?

The term “Pop Art” emerged from the pen of English critic Lawrence Alloway in the late 1950s to describe what he viewed as a contemporary attitudinal shift in subject matter and techniques of art. Instead of rarefied content like Bible stories, myths or legends that had traditionally been the subjects of Fine Art, Pop art saw the increasing spread of corporate marketing through western culture as inspiration to take commerce itself as the subject of artistic scrutiny – and that it was every bit as artistically worthy.

So Pop Art began when our corporate world began, to some extent. It was when artists and designers began looking around and seeing that art is truly in the eye of the beholder…and can be all around us. Whether its a sign on a highway or a box of cereal on your kitchen table or a brightly colored soda can, Pop Art is our art, forged from a commercial need but extending itself to an art form  that resonates with all of us.