Pop Art and Beyond: Tom Wesselmann April 17, 2013

Famous for his Great American Nude series, American painter Tom Wesselmann (1931 – 2004) is widely regarded as one of the leading figures in the vanguard of American Pop Art. Alongside his contemporaries Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and James Rosenquist, he forged a new movement using the materials and images of everyday popular culture. However, unlike his two fellow Pop artists, Wesselman has never been the subject of a major retrospective exhibition in North America.

This exhibition, organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, shows an artist who constantly reinvented himself long after the Pop Art movement had passed. He explored all kinds of techniques from plastic bas-relief to laser-cut steel drawings and multi-paneled shaped canvases. In his work, Wesselmann addressed the pressing issues of the art world of his time: the interpretation of the history of art; the status of the image; the relationship between art, industry and technology; and the American canon of beauty.

Official Website: http://www.vmfa.state.va.us/exhibitions/wesselmann.aspx