The exhibition "New Painting of Common Objects" at the Pasadena Art Museum

Norton Simon Museum

The Norton Simon Museum is an Art Museum located in Pasadena, California, United States. It was previously known by the names: the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum.-Overview:...

 in 1962 was the first museum survey of American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pop art

Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...

. The eight artists included were: Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...

, Jim Dine

Jim Dine

Jim Dine is an American pop artist. He is sometimes considered to be a part of the Neo-Dada movement. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended Walnut Hills High School, the University of Cincinnati, and received a BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He first earned respect in the art world with...

, Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

, Phillip Hefferton

Phillip Hefferton

Phillip Hefferton is an American pop artist from Detroit, Michigan, known for his paintings of banknotes. A friend of artist Robert Dowd, he entered the Society of Arts and Crafts, Detroit, where he studied painting with Sarkis Sarkisian. In 1958-9 he began drawing "common objects"...

, Robert Dowd

Robert Dowd

Robert Dowd was an American artist, who also painted under the name Robert O'Dowd.After his discharge from the U.S. Marines in 1957 he entered the Society of Arts and Crafts/Center for Creative Studies, Detroit, Michigan where he studied painting with Sarkis Sarkisian. In 1958-9 he began drawing...

, Edward Ruscha

Edward Ruscha

Edward Joseph Ruscha IV is an American artist associated with the Pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. Ruscha lives and works in Culver City, California...

, Joe Goode

Joe Goode

Joe Goode was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1937. In 1959 he moved to Los Angeles, CA where he attended the Chouinard Art Institute until 1961.First recognized for his Pop Art milk bottle paintings and cloud imagery, Goode's work was included along with Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jim Dine,...

 and Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter whose most famous works are of cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys and lipsticks. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate...

. It was curated by Walter Hopps

Walter Hopps

Walter Hopps was an American museum director and curator of contemporary art. His obituary in the Washington Post described him as a "sort of a gonzo museum director -- elusive, unpredictable, outlandish in his range, jagged in his vision, heedless of rules."Hopps was born in Eagle Rock, Los...

, who had given Andy Warhol his first solo show at the Ferus Gallery

Ferus Gallery

The Ferus Gallery was a contemporary art gallery operating from 1957-1966. In 1957 it was located at 736-A North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California...

 in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 the previous year. The show helped the pop art movement gain critical acceptance, preceding the Guggenheim Museum

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...

's 1963 pop art exhibition "Six Painters and the Object", curated by Lawrence Alloway

Lawrence Alloway

Lawrence Alloway was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from the 1960s. In the 1950s he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an influential writer and curator in the US...

.

The artists

The artists came from different backgrounds. Thiebaud was a teacher at the University of California at Davis

University of California, Davis

The University of California, Davis is a public teaching and research university established in 1905 and located in Davis, California, USA. Spanning over , the campus is the largest within the University of California system and third largest by enrollment...

. Lichtenstein, Hefferton and Dowd had previously worked in the Abstract Expressionist style. Dine had been associated with Happenings in New York. Warhol had been a successful commercial artist. The youngest members of the group, old highschool friends Ruscha (24) and Goode (25), had recently left art school and were supporting themselves with graphic design work and odd jobs. In particular, Ruscha worked as a layout artist for the Carson-Roberts Advertising Agency in Los Angeles.