1971
Although he insisted that he and his fellow Pop artists developed their art-making styles independently, American painter James Rosenquist belonged at the table with Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
Known for his distinctive use of visual montage, Rosenquist produced large, vibrantly colored tableaux marked by fragmentation and overlap. He often employed familiar motifs and objects drawn from popular contemporary culture — hot dogs, lipstick tubes, American flags — which he manipulated to form disorienting compositions whose constituent elements are nearly unrecognizable.
Born in North Dakota to Swedish parents, Rosenquist was encouraged to pursue painting by his mother, who was also an artist. He studied painting for two years at the University of Minnesota, but dropped out at the age of 21 to attend the Art Students League in New York on a scholarship. A job as a billboard painter in the late 1950s set him up to pursue his signature style, which borrowed its bold graphics and remixed kitschy aesthetic from the visual vocabulary of advertising. Works like Flamingo Capsule (1983) embody his trademark visual dissonance, drawing cigarette-ad motifs into conversation with stripes from the American flag and aluminum foil wrappers.
In addition to enormous paintings, Rosenquist created drawings, prints and collages. The 2011 lithograph The Memory Continues but the Clock Disappears is a montage of melting clocks and confetti, all submerged in a pool of water. While wryly hinting at the inevitability of decay and deterioration — suggesting that life is a ticking clock — the composition also alludes to Salvador Dalí's signature motif, the defining symbol of Surrealism. Such compositions demonstrate how Rosenquist masterfully combined seemingly incongruous elements into a harmonious and poetic whole.
Find James Rosenquist art today on 1stDibs.
Aquafix
By Robert Rauschenberg
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) is revered as one of the most innovative American pop artists - more avant-garde than Warhol, and more audacious than Jasper Johns. For much of his p...
Etching, Lithograph
Untitled (for Kennedy)
By Robert Rauschenberg
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Robert Rauschenberg is revered as one of the most innovative American pop artists - more avant-garde than Warhol, more audacious than Jasper Johns. In addition to his artistic achie...
Lithograph
Horn
By Robert Rauschenberg
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) is revered as one of the most innovative American Pop artists. More avant-garde than Warhol and more audacious than Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg worked...
Lithograph
Geometric Mouse
By Claes Oldenburg
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Claes Oldenberg (b.1929) is a Swedish-born American artist, renowned for his contribution to Pop art by way of his iconic soft sculptures and public installations. In 1962, Oldenburg debuted his revolutionary soft sculptures at the Green Gallery in New York. Three giant, squishy sculptures of an ice cream cone, a hamburger, and a slice of cake, swelled across the gallery floor, forever changing the way we define sculpture. It has been noted that Oldenburg's early work was largely inspired by Yayoi Kusama's hand-sewn phallic-shaped soft sculptures that enveloped the surfaces of ironing boards, sofas, and boats. Click here to see an exhibition poster featuring a later example of Kusama's soft sculptures. Ranging from voluminous hamburgers (famously on display at the AGO) to ballistic badminton shuttlecocks, Oldenberg's colossal sculptures replicate commonplace objects on a grand scale, often disrupting the environment they inhibit with curious and playful subtexts. The confrontational nature of Oldenberg's sculptures places an emphasis on the viewer, asking us to reconsider our relationship to these recognizable, but obscure, objects. "Geometric Mouse...
Lithograph
Grey Suds
By Ed Ruscha
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) is known internationally for his blending of conceptual approaches with pop sensibilities. Today he is firmly established as a leading figure in American 20th cen...
Screen
One Down
By Howard Hodgkin
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Howard Hodgkin (1932–2017) was a renowned British painter and printmaker, and a central figure in twentieth-century abstraction. Drawing inspiration from everyday life, he rendered s...
Lithograph
Katonah Muse, James Rosenquist
By James Rosenquist
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: James Rosenquist (1933-2017) Title: Katonah Muse Year: 1993 Medium: Lithograph in colors on wove paper Edition: A.P. 6/20; 100 Size: 27.75 x 21.25 inches Inscription: Signed ...
Lithograph
For Gene Swenson (State II)
By James Rosenquist
Located in Greenwich, CT
For Gene Swenon (State II) is an aquatint etching on paper, 22.75 x 39.75 inches, signed 'Rosenquist' and dated 1978 lower right; numbered 67/78 and titled lower left. From the edit...
Paper, Aquatint
Untitled, 1975
By James Rosenquist
Located in Palo Alto, CA
James Rosenquist Untitled, 1975 is an enthralling work created by the artist as a study for a lithograph of the same title. Rosenquist, alongside artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lic...
Mixed Media
Derriere l'etoile
By James Rosenquist
Located in Hollywood, FL
Artist: James Rosenquist Title: Derriere l'etoile, 1977 Medium: Color Lithograph on Arches Cover Paper Size: 36 1/2 x 74 inches Edition: 74 of 100 Year: 1977 Notes: Hand Signed, Num...
Lithograph
While the Earth Revolves at Night, Pop Art Etching by James Rosenquist
By James Rosenquist
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: James Rosenquist, American (1933 - ) Title: While the Earth Revolves at Night Year: 1982 Medium: Etching with Aquatint, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 59 Image Size: ...
Etching, Aquatint
Brighter than the Sun, James Rosenquist: colorful abstract pop art rainbow
By James Rosenquist
Located in New York, NY
This vibrant red, blue, orange and yellow lithograph is based on the 1961 Rosenquist oil painting Brighter than the Sun (private collection), with fragmented images from advertising,...
Lithograph
