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Pop Art wasn’t invented in Manhattan in the early 60s, but at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in the early 50s, with the founding of the Independent Group, a collaborative think-tank of writers, architects and artists, including Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton, for whom popular culture – movies, magazines, music, science fiction – was as relevant a starting point for art as anything else. Pop culture was often appropriated directly into their work through collage – pre-figuring Andy Warhol’s use of silk-screened press photos and Roy Lichtenstein’s re-working of comics.
As the Swinging Sixties took off, British Pop inevitably became intertwined with music and fashion: Peter Blake designed the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album and Robyn Denny’s Austin Reed mural provided the visual back-beat to Carnaby Street and Cool Britannia.
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