The American artist Tom Wesselmann is one of the most important representatives of American Pop Art. After graduating from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Wesselmann became one of the founding members of the Judson Gallery. Unlike Roy Lichtenstein's or Andy Warhol's works, his works focused on life situations and Wesselmann never liked his classification in American Pop Art:
“I dislike labels in general and 'Pop' in particular, especially because it overemphasizes the material used. There does seem to be a tendency to use similar materials and images, but the different ways they are used denies any kind of group intention”
Nevertheless, he also drew his aesthetic inspiration from the typical advertising of the 60s and 70s. For this, he was inspired by brochures, posters, depictions from film and television. In the course of his artistic career, his leitmotif crystallised: the female nude in sexual provocation. He became known for his large-scale series American Nudes, the subject of which was the advertising cliché of 'sex sells' with anonymised women presenting their sexual attributes. In the beginning, Tom Wesselmann painted the women entirely with attention to detail, but gradually stylised the bodies and emphasised crucial, sexual and feminine body parts such as the sensually open mouth, bright teeth, the attractive hips and thighs or the pubic hair in full view. The woman is an anonymous sexual object used to stimulate the sales of mass consumption objects of everyday life. Other symbols indicating the social status, such as the car, are monumentalized and transposed in a synthetic universe stifling all natural things.
“I don’t depict nudes from any sociological, cultural or emotional intention. The nude, I feel, is a good way to be aggressive, figuratively. I want to stir up intensive, explosive reactions in the viewers.”
Whether Wesselmann's work is a satirical critique of the modern consumerist world or simply glorifies it cannot be answered unequivocally. His work can be divided into two major series: Women nudes and still life realized with found objects and pictures collages cut out from magazines
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