28 Sep 1963: pop-art Whaam! debuts

On this day in 1963, Roy Lichtenstein‘s pop-art piece Whaam! made its debut.

Pop art sought to bridge the gap between high-brow art and low-brow culture. Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol were its major stars. Warhol, known as the “Pope of Pop,” is most famous for works like Campbell’s Soup Cans and various treatments of a photograph of Marilyn Monroe.

Other famous Lichtenstein works are Drowning Girl and Oh, Jeff…I Love You, Too…But…. Like many of Lichtenstein’s works, Whaam! had its inspiration in comics, this one a 1962 DC panel about war.

Image: excerpt from the piece from Tate Modern