When it comes to Pop Art, the first names that come to mind are often Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. However, a third artist is fundamental in the emergence of pop art: Tom Wesselmann.
Wesselmann became one of the main artists of American pop art in the 1960s, rejecting the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning in favor of classical representations of the nude, still life, and landscape. He creates collages and assemblies integrating everyday objects and advertising elements, in an effort to create powerful images.
The 1960s were marked by two iconic series: Still Lives (literally Natures Mortes) but also and especially the series of Great American Nudes. In the 1970s, Wesselmann continued to explore the ideas and mediums that had occupied him during the previous decade. More specifically, the monumental series Standing Still Life, composed of self-supporting cut-out canvases, presented small intimate objects on a grandiose scale.
He also initiated the series of Smokers, a set of cut lips with impressive smoke billows. The mouth at Wesselmann, whether in a Great American Nude Or a Smoker, is a symbol of eroticism that runs through all of his work. In 1980, Wesselmann continued his research on cut canvases and began to create his first metal works. He initiated the development of a laser cutting process that would allow him to faithfully transpose his designs into metallic silhouettes.
At the end of his career, the artist developed these themes further, creating three-dimensional abstract images that he described as “a return to what I had desperately sought to achieve in 1959.” It had actually come full circle. Tom Wesselmann's work has benefited from numerous retrospectives, confirming his status as an iconic artist of the 20th century - the latest at the Louis Vuitton Foundation also recalls his importance in the emergence of pop art.

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