Pop Art Essay

Caroline Johnston-n5530598
The Alliance between Pop and the Domestic Realm.
As the Second World War came to an end it bought with it the flourishing emergence of American suburbia.   For the first time in the history of the Twentieth Century the American middle class found themselves with money in their pocket and the prospect of not only a national identity but a new found domestic life. The boom of the post-war American domestic economy had remarkable influence on the availability of consumer goods to the broader public. David. M. Potter stated in 1945 (as cited in Whiting, 1997 p. 54) America possesses unprecedented riches and that these are very widely distributed among one hundred and fifty million American people. If few can cite the figures, everyone knows that we have, per capita, more automobiles, more telephones, more radios, more vacuum cleaners, more electric lights, more bathtubs, more supermarkets and movie palaces and hospitals, than any other nation. This growth in consumer culture sculpted the domestic home; it filled the home with affordable modern conveniences and developed labour saving attitudes. This caused the rising movement of Pop Art to not only to reflect this domesticity but to also be included within the domestic realm.  
This essay aims to exemplify the contributing factors in what caused and influenced the balanced alliance between Pop Art, Consumer Culture and the Domestic Home. The first factor addressed will be domesticity; this factor will concentrate on the common theme of domestic life that emerged in Artist works as well as the acceptance of Pop into the home.   To follow will be a brief analysis on the importance of multiples and its contributing factors to the availability of art to the middle class. Lastly, the paper will examine the development of the Artist as Designer and how this pushed Pop into everyday life.
The term ‘Pop art’ was coined by English critic Lawrence Alloway (As cited in Clark, 2001 p. 192) in order...