A revolutionary and enduring change in the production, marketing and consumption of prints took place in the 1960s. Inspired by the monumental, bold and eye-catching imagery of post-war America, a young generation of artists took to printmaking with enthusiasm, putting it on an equal footing with painting and sculpture, matching their size, bright colour and impact. The growth of an affluent middle class in urban America also opened a booming market for prints that was seized upon by enterprising publishers, print workshops and artists.
Focusing on modern and contemporary American printmaking, this exhibition features nine key works from the British Museum’s print collection. The exhibition opens with the bold image making of three of the greatest printmakers from the Pop period: Warhol, Johns and Rauschenberg, whose work took varied inspiration from the mass media consumer society of 1960s America. The progress and creativity of printmaking through some of the most dynamic and turbulent years in US history is followed right to the present day, with prints by a relatively young African-American artist Kara Walker, and the recent work of one of the giants of the field, the octogenarian Jim Dine.
This exhibition follows the major British Museum exhibition The American Dream: pop to present, sponsored by Morgan Stanley and supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art, which traced the creative momentum of American art over the past six decades using more than 200 works by 70 artists.
A British Museum Partnership Exhibition. Generously supported by the Dorset Foundation in memory of Harry M Weinrebe.
Image Credit: Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Green Pea Soup, 1968
© 2017 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London
Gallery Opening Times
Monday – Saturday 10am – 4pm
Sunday – Closed (Except during Sefton School Holidays)
