0:00:04 > 0:00:06In the 20th century, something strange
0:00:06 > 0:00:08happened to art.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13Traditions that had held good for centuries suddenly felt
0:00:13 > 0:00:15badly out of date.
0:00:19 > 0:00:22And a new breed of artists emerged, to overturn them,
0:00:22 > 0:00:28erasing the map of art and redrawing it for a new age.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35All right, standby, then, please.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38And something else had changed. For the first time,
0:00:38 > 0:00:41television allowed artists
0:00:41 > 0:00:44to talk about their work to a mass audience.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46What kept you going, then?
0:00:46 > 0:00:47I can't say. Just, I kept going.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51Something made me keep on going. I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55In this series, we'll be digging deep into the BBC archives
0:00:55 > 0:00:59to hear the story of 20th-century art first hand,
0:00:59 > 0:01:01from the artists themselves.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04She's about to do something to this girl.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06I think she's only just tickling her at the moment.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09I don't think it's anything too serious, but something horrible is going to happen.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15In this episode, we'll meet the British artists
0:01:15 > 0:01:20whose imaginations were shaped by the horrors of the Second World War.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22A man of today, who has seen
0:01:22 > 0:01:25all that thing of the past, cannot go back.
0:01:25 > 0:01:27He has to really work on himself
0:01:27 > 0:01:31to be able to make these images of immediacy.
0:01:32 > 0:01:35While in America, others found new and dramatic ways
0:01:35 > 0:01:38to express themselves on canvas.
0:01:38 > 0:01:40On the floor, I'm more at ease.
0:01:40 > 0:01:44I feel nearer, more part of the painting.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48Since this way, I can walk around it and, literally, be IN the painting.
0:01:48 > 0:01:52In the brave new world of post-war affluence,
0:01:52 > 0:01:55artists found inspiration in new places -
0:01:55 > 0:01:59in the household gods of the consumer society
0:02:00 > 0:02:03or in the garish imagery of popular culture...
0:02:08 > 0:02:12..and the hedonistic freedom of the sexual revolution.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14Marvellous shadow.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17This is how they did it, in their own words.
0:02:17 > 0:02:19It's so glamorous! Oh!
0:02:33 > 0:02:36It's 1939.
0:02:36 > 0:02:39The shadow of war has fallen across Europe.
0:02:42 > 0:02:47The people of Britain are about to find their world changed utterly.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53The war would touch every corner of society.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57And for British artists, its images of destruction and brutality
0:02:57 > 0:03:00would provide compelling inspiration.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08One of them was Henry Moore, the son of a Yorkshire coalminer,
0:03:08 > 0:03:11who would become the most important
0:03:11 > 0:03:14British sculptor of the 20th century.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17Henry put sculpture on the map.
0:03:17 > 0:03:20A sculptor was nothing.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22It was... It was an unimportant thing.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25Nobody knew about it. You didn't know what a sculptor was.
0:03:25 > 0:03:27It happened because of him.
0:03:27 > 0:03:28Entirely because of him.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33Henry Moore had established himself
0:03:33 > 0:03:36as an avant-garde sculptor in the 1930s.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38SIREN WAILS
0:03:38 > 0:03:42But the horror of war changed the focus of his art.
0:03:42 > 0:03:43One night, during an air raid,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46Moore was trapped in the London Underground.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52He was so moved by what he saw,
0:03:52 > 0:03:54he later began drawing the extraordinary scenes
0:03:54 > 0:03:57of people huddled together on the platform.
0:04:08 > 0:04:11Volunteering to become a war artist,
0:04:11 > 0:04:16he returned, over the course of a year, producing 300 sketches.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19These would become known as The Shelter Drawings.
0:04:22 > 0:04:26The experience had a lasting impact on Moore.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29At the age of 80, he spoke about it to the BBC
0:04:29 > 0:04:32for the first time on film since the war.
0:04:34 > 0:04:36If there was something that attracted...
0:04:36 > 0:04:39or that I thought was interesting,
0:04:39 > 0:04:44I'd have to make a surreptitious note in a little notebook I had.
0:04:44 > 0:04:49And then the next day, when the scene was fresh in one's mind,
0:04:49 > 0:04:53I had a notebook, which is this, and I began drawing.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59What I was trying to show
0:04:59 > 0:05:03was my reaction to this dramatic suspense.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07It's the situation that you get
0:05:07 > 0:05:09of a tension between people
0:05:09 > 0:05:14and something about an impending, um...disaster,
0:05:14 > 0:05:15impending doom.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18There's a drama in silence, more than in shouting.
0:05:23 > 0:05:25The Shelter Drawings are a turning point for Moore.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28Before them, he's a very successful sculptor
0:05:28 > 0:05:31but a sculptor showing in small commercial galleries.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34The Shelter Drawings transform his reputation,
0:05:34 > 0:05:36so that he comes out of the war
0:05:36 > 0:05:39as maybe the best-known artist in Britain.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42You can see in the drawings, the beginnings of the themes
0:05:42 > 0:05:46that come to dominate his work in the years after the war.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48The mother and child and the family group.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54Moore produced his first group sculpture
0:05:54 > 0:05:57two years after the war, called Three Standing Figures.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05He said it reflected the same sense of community
0:06:05 > 0:06:07as The Shelter Drawings.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11The figures huddled together, as though scanning the horizon.
0:06:15 > 0:06:17In his studio at his Hertfordshire home,
0:06:17 > 0:06:21Moore pursued his obsession with the human form,
0:06:21 > 0:06:25creating huge distorted figures in stone and bronze.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39It was astonishing. It was different.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43And how dare one do those things to the human figure, really?
0:06:43 > 0:06:46But it was an eye-opener and I wasn't questioning it.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50I was very much, you know, very much overwhelmed by it.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54And my own work started getting influenced by him.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01By the 1970s, Moore had become a global phenomenon.
0:07:01 > 0:07:06He was interviewed by the BBC at an exhibition in Florence.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13The human form for me is inevitable.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16And if people think they can go through life
0:07:16 > 0:07:20without being worried about, the human figure and the human form,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23I think it's like somebody trying to go through life,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26like a painter, probably, trying to go through life
0:07:26 > 0:07:29looking only at blue. Never knowing any other colour.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33We must know form. We must know the human figure.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39In a successful and prolific career spanning over 50 years,
0:07:39 > 0:07:43Moore produced over 6,000 sculptures.
0:07:45 > 0:07:47His huge, oddly-vulnerable figures
0:07:47 > 0:07:52dominated the forecourts of prestigious corporate buildings.
0:07:52 > 0:07:55The extraordinary achievement of Moore
0:07:55 > 0:07:58was that he was really the first,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01the first British international artist.
0:08:01 > 0:08:03In an extraordinary way.
0:08:03 > 0:08:05And he believed that modernist tenet
0:08:05 > 0:08:09that you could make art that talked to people universally,
0:08:09 > 0:08:13irrespective of creed, language, and race
0:08:13 > 0:08:16and maybe invite them to look at the world in a new way.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23In his last interview, at the age of 85,
0:08:23 > 0:08:28Moore spoke to broadcaster Bernard Levin about his life's achievement.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31You now have the most immense renown.
0:08:32 > 0:08:33Do you enjoy that?
0:08:33 > 0:08:36Well, I'm pleased, in a way,
0:08:36 > 0:08:41but if...if it hadn't have happened, I'd have gone on just the same.
0:08:41 > 0:08:42Of course one's pleased.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46It's like if somebody gives you a chocolate.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49You want to contribute something.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53I was struck by one thing I read of a remark you had made
0:08:53 > 0:08:55when you said that when you are working on a maquette,
0:08:55 > 0:08:57just a tiny thing you're holding
0:08:57 > 0:09:00in the palm of your hand as you work it,
0:09:00 > 0:09:04you... It's like, you said, "It's like God inventing a new animal."
0:09:04 > 0:09:05Yes.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09As a creator, a creative artist,
0:09:09 > 0:09:11you are God for the moment, aren't you?
0:09:11 > 0:09:13In that sense, yes.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16One is a, yeah...is a creator.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19And on the seventh day, you rested from your labour?
0:09:19 > 0:09:21- Well...- Hardly.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23No, I like working.
0:09:26 > 0:09:29While Henry Moore was drawing sleeping figures
0:09:29 > 0:09:31sheltering in the London Underground,
0:09:31 > 0:09:34the Second World War was having a profound impact
0:09:34 > 0:09:36on another British artist.
0:09:36 > 0:09:41The Irish-born Francis Bacon had come to London to become an artist,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44but repeated rejection had led him to abandon painting.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49He was 30 years old when war broke out.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51As an asthmatic, he was unable to fight
0:09:51 > 0:09:54and volunteered as a rescue worker,
0:09:54 > 0:09:57pulling bodies from the bombed wreckage in London.
0:09:57 > 0:10:00Seeing the victims of war haunted Bacon
0:10:00 > 0:10:03and he felt compelled to paint again.
0:10:05 > 0:10:07In 1944, he produced
0:10:07 > 0:10:10Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion.
0:10:14 > 0:10:17Bacon's strange beast-like figures
0:10:17 > 0:10:20conjured up images of the violence of the war,
0:10:20 > 0:10:23images that were still part of many people's everyday life.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29When it was first seen, it was a sensation.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32One critic said that there was painting before Three Studies
0:10:32 > 0:10:36and there was painting after Three Studies, and you can never confuse the two.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40And that is true, because no-one had ever seen a painting
0:10:40 > 0:10:42quite like this before.
0:10:42 > 0:10:47It's a brutal painting. I mean, it's a vicious, uncompromising painting.
0:10:47 > 0:10:52It sends shivers up your spine, it's so awful in some ways.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56Overnight, Francis Bacon became the most controversial painter in Britain.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04How can you get high, civilised society
0:11:04 > 0:11:06and this incredible brutality,
0:11:06 > 0:11:10of exterminating people in a gas chamber?
0:11:10 > 0:11:11How do those two things co-exist?
0:11:11 > 0:11:13What is our human potential?
0:11:13 > 0:11:16And, instead of saying,
0:11:16 > 0:11:21"Well, I can't look at that. I'm going to have to go and paint fruit"
0:11:21 > 0:11:26Bacon looked harshly at what it is that we are, as human beings.
0:11:29 > 0:11:33In the aftermath of the war, Bacon produced another work,
0:11:33 > 0:11:35which was no less unsettling.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44A figure dressed in a dark business suit,
0:11:44 > 0:11:47his expression one of menace and violence,
0:11:47 > 0:11:52overshadowed by a bloody carcass, hanging above him, like a crucifix.
0:11:55 > 0:12:00Years later, in a BBC interview in his studio, Bacon claimed
0:12:00 > 0:12:05his dark visions were just a natural response to what he had seen.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09A man of today, who has seen all that thing of the past,
0:12:09 > 0:12:12cannot go back, so he has to go through...
0:12:12 > 0:12:19back to...to what is called an immediacy of...of art
0:12:19 > 0:12:23in a totally different way. He has to work on himself,
0:12:23 > 0:12:28to go back and to be able to make these images of immediacy.
0:12:28 > 0:12:33I call them... I know I drift in my conversation
0:12:33 > 0:12:37between the expression "violence" and "immediacy".
0:12:37 > 0:12:41I think immediacy is a better one than violence,
0:12:41 > 0:12:43because violence has all sorts of implications,
0:12:43 > 0:12:45which immediacy doesn't give,
0:12:45 > 0:12:48because immediacy is just about the immediate object
0:12:48 > 0:12:50there before you.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58The violent imagery of Bacon's wartime paintings
0:12:58 > 0:13:03ran like a dark thread through his work for the next 40 years.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11The remarkable thing about Francis Bacon is that he was
0:13:11 > 0:13:16so uncompromising in the way he addressed
0:13:16 > 0:13:19what he saw as the fundamental issues of life.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22Life is just this transient moment
0:13:22 > 0:13:27and that's why I think he thinks of capturing a moment in time,
0:13:27 > 0:13:29because that's all there is.
0:13:29 > 0:13:34That's how we make sense, I think, of both the darkness that informs
0:13:34 > 0:13:38everything he does, and the kind of gregarious joie de vivre
0:13:38 > 0:13:41that informs everything he does outside the studio.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44You know, you live for today, because tomorrow you're dead,
0:13:44 > 0:13:48and it's that message, really, that runs through all of his art.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50There, it is opening at last, yes.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55Am I going to be the only one drinking?
0:13:55 > 0:13:57I think you're actually as difficult to please over wine
0:13:57 > 0:13:59as you are over painting.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02Let's, erm, let's drink to that, then!
0:14:02 > 0:14:08At the age of 75, in a film made for the BBC's Arena programme,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11Bacon showed the art critic David Sylvester
0:14:11 > 0:14:13around his famously-chaotic studio.
0:14:13 > 0:14:17With him was Bacon's lover, John Edwards.
0:14:17 > 0:14:18..the dust collects!
0:14:18 > 0:14:21It's reasonably tidy at the moment, Francis, isn't it, really?
0:14:21 > 0:14:25Well it is tidy compared to what it sometimes is.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30John and I really try to throw out things and tidy them a bit,
0:14:30 > 0:14:34because it became like you could hardly walk into the place, you know?
0:14:34 > 0:14:36It was like having a great dog in here that kept you out.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38There was so much of it in here!
0:14:41 > 0:14:44I really would be very sad if I had to leave this place.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47I feel at home here in this chaos.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50Also, chaos suggests images to me.
0:14:50 > 0:14:55Not necessarily, just that I love living in chaos.
0:14:55 > 0:15:01Because after all, what is art about? It's trying to make something
0:15:01 > 0:15:03out of the chaos of existence.
0:15:08 > 0:15:12The war had other profound effects on the history of modern art.
0:15:12 > 0:15:17It forced artists fleeing the war in Europe across the Atlantic.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24New York became a magnet for exiled painters and sculptors.
0:15:27 > 0:15:28Young American artists
0:15:28 > 0:15:30were now able to see works by painters
0:15:30 > 0:15:33like the Russian artist, Chagall...
0:15:34 > 0:15:36..and the surrealist, Max Ernst,
0:15:36 > 0:15:37at first hand.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43Among them was a reclusive country boy, from the plains
0:15:43 > 0:15:46of the mid-West, Jackson Pollock,
0:15:46 > 0:15:49who had moved to New York at the age of 18 to become an artist.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55But Pollock was among a handful of painters who, although inspired by
0:15:55 > 0:15:59the foreign masters, wanted to break away from the European tradition.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04There was a sense that, if art was going to be in made in New York,
0:16:04 > 0:16:07it was going to be made anew, which was a perfect setting
0:16:07 > 0:16:12for a sort of modernist... eruption, almost, in painting.
0:16:14 > 0:16:16Pollock began to experiment.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19His work became more abstract,
0:16:19 > 0:16:21his paintings more expressive.
0:16:23 > 0:16:29But it was in 1943 that he produced his most startling work,
0:16:29 > 0:16:31a vast canvas called Mural.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37It was unlike any style of painting ever seen before in America.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41A mass of wild brushstrokes,
0:16:41 > 0:16:45which seemed to take on no recognisable form.
0:16:47 > 0:16:52On seeing Mural, the renowned American critic Clement Greenberg
0:16:52 > 0:16:55hailed Pollock as "the greatest painter this country has produced".
0:16:58 > 0:17:00Despite Greenberg's praise,
0:17:00 > 0:17:04Pollock was still unknown outside the small American art clique.
0:17:07 > 0:17:11It was when Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner moved to Long Island,
0:17:11 > 0:17:16outside New York, that he was able to fully develop his unique style.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23This documentary, which Pollock narrated,
0:17:23 > 0:17:26is one of the few surviving records of the artist on film.
0:17:29 > 0:17:31I hardly ever stretch my canvas before painting.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall
0:17:35 > 0:17:37or the floor.
0:17:37 > 0:17:39On the floor I'm more at ease.
0:17:39 > 0:17:42I feel nearer, more a part of the painting,
0:17:42 > 0:17:46since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides,
0:17:46 > 0:17:49and, literally, be IN the painting.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53I continue to get further away from the usual painter's tools,
0:17:53 > 0:17:55such as easel, palettes, brushes.
0:17:55 > 0:18:00I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint.
0:18:06 > 0:18:11Pollock had a tremendous amount of excess energy.
0:18:11 > 0:18:19When you think of Jackson... His eyes were like burning vortexes
0:18:19 > 0:18:23and the energy in this man - you know, he was wired!
0:18:23 > 0:18:28So think of him tuning in to the wiring system of the universe,
0:18:28 > 0:18:31which is...we are all connected now
0:18:31 > 0:18:34and think of his work that way.
0:18:36 > 0:18:38When Pollock exhibited these new
0:18:38 > 0:18:40so-called "drip paintings"
0:18:40 > 0:18:41for the first time,
0:18:41 > 0:18:45the art world, or at least some of it, was transfixed.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58In a rare surviving interview,
0:18:58 > 0:19:01Pollock spoke about the inspiration behind his new style.
0:19:03 > 0:19:06INTERVIEWER: Mr Pollock, there's been a great deal of controversy and
0:19:06 > 0:19:10a great many comments have been made regarding your method of painting.
0:19:10 > 0:19:12Is there something you'd like to tell us about that?
0:19:12 > 0:19:17POLLOCK: My opinion is that new needs need new techniques.
0:19:17 > 0:19:21It seems to me that the modern painter cannot express this age -
0:19:21 > 0:19:24the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio -
0:19:24 > 0:19:29in the old forms of the Renaissance, or of any other past culture.
0:19:29 > 0:19:31I suppose every time you're approached by a layman,
0:19:31 > 0:19:34they ask you how they should look at a Pollock painting,
0:19:34 > 0:19:36or any other modern painting?
0:19:36 > 0:19:41I think they should not look for, but look passively,
0:19:41 > 0:19:44and try to receive what the painting has to offer, and not bring a
0:19:44 > 0:19:48subject matter or pre-conceived idea of what they're to be looking for.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54It's an astonishing experience to stand in front of a great Pollock.
0:19:54 > 0:19:57It's like being able to capture the Milky Way
0:19:57 > 0:20:01and the capillary in somebody's eye, at the same moment.
0:20:01 > 0:20:06And I find that thrilling, to be confronted with a Pollock
0:20:06 > 0:20:10that does that, that has this incredible space through it.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13And you're an active participant in the painting,
0:20:13 > 0:20:15because your eyes are, literally, making the painting
0:20:15 > 0:20:20as you're looking at it and you follow those balletic movements.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28Pollock was at the forefront of a revolutionary group of artists,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31known as the abstract expressionists.
0:20:33 > 0:20:38Inspired by the surrealist principle of painting by free association,
0:20:38 > 0:20:41these artists wanted to produce expressionistic
0:20:41 > 0:20:44and spontaneous reactions to the world around them.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51But with this new-found success came an increased demand
0:20:51 > 0:20:55for his work, which Pollock struggled to cope with.
0:20:55 > 0:20:59He became ever more reclusive.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02At the age of 44, he died in a car accident,
0:21:02 > 0:21:04after a heavy bout of drinking.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16America in the 1950s was turning into a land of plenty.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23Wartime austerity was now a thing of the past.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27People were eager to spend and advertisers ready to help.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34Televisions, cars, washing machines, toasters...
0:21:34 > 0:21:38everyone wanted a piece of the new, modern lifestyle.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44But the first person to spot the artistic potential of this
0:21:44 > 0:21:48consumer revolution was not American, but British.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53In 1956, this picture began a new chapter
0:21:53 > 0:21:56in the story of 20th century art.
0:21:57 > 0:21:58Its catchy title...
0:22:03 > 0:22:07..hinted at a new humour and irony in art.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10The artist was Richard Hamilton,
0:22:10 > 0:22:13the 34-year-old son of a lorry driver, from South London.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17Hamilton wasn't just important for British art,
0:22:17 > 0:22:19Hamilton was important for art, full stop.
0:22:19 > 0:22:22I mean, this is one of the giants of 20th century art,
0:22:22 > 0:22:26who for some reason, has been strangely underestimated,
0:22:26 > 0:22:28but if you think that, erm,
0:22:28 > 0:22:34the discovery of the modern world as a suitable subject for art,
0:22:34 > 0:22:38if you think that what pop art went on to do, which was essentially
0:22:38 > 0:22:42say, "Hey, these are interesting things that are happening in the modern world, the commercial world,"
0:22:42 > 0:22:44if you think that's an important discovery
0:22:44 > 0:22:48- and I do, because it gave art a future - then Hamilton's your man.
0:22:49 > 0:22:53Richard Hamilton had received a classical training in art at the
0:22:53 > 0:22:58Royal Academy and the Slade, before working as a designer in London.
0:22:58 > 0:23:02He became fascinated by the way the invasion of consumer goods
0:23:02 > 0:23:05was transforming 1950s Britain.
0:23:05 > 0:23:11This absolute tidal wave of exciting cultural things,
0:23:11 > 0:23:14was a really exciting moment, it was a really overwhelming moment.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17They hadn't really experienced anything like it before.
0:23:17 > 0:23:18And it was a revelation,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21and opened up everyone's eyes to this new world of possibilities.
0:23:25 > 0:23:30Hamilton's collage is an ironic altarpiece to consumer culture,
0:23:30 > 0:23:34a hymn to an achingly desirable modern lifestyle.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37The vacuum cleaner with the extra-long cord
0:23:37 > 0:23:39to reach that little bit further.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46A comic book page framed like a work of art.
0:23:46 > 0:23:50A supersize, branded tin of ham.
0:23:54 > 0:23:57At the heart of the picture stands a body-builder,
0:23:57 > 0:24:00holding an oversized lollipop labelled with the word "pop".
0:24:03 > 0:24:06This image would thrust Hamilton to the forefront of a movement,
0:24:06 > 0:24:09which became known as "pop art".
0:24:12 > 0:24:16In 1969, Hamilton was interviewed at his home by Joan Bakewell
0:24:16 > 0:24:19for the BBC's Late Night Line-Up.
0:24:19 > 0:24:23Richard Hamilton, in 1957, you were doing work which was later
0:24:23 > 0:24:28to earn you the title of "father of English pop art".
0:24:28 > 0:24:31How do you feel about that now?
0:24:31 > 0:24:33At the time, I was just doing something necessary,
0:24:33 > 0:24:36in my own terms.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40I was trying to make an art which was figurative, in the midst of
0:24:40 > 0:24:45a lot of painting that was abstract. Hard-edge, abstract expressionism.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48The influence of America was very strong at that time in England.
0:24:48 > 0:24:53Suddenly, there seemed a need to be concerned with the mass media,
0:24:53 > 0:24:57intellectually, but then to wipe it away from one's interest
0:24:57 > 0:25:00in a studio, seemed very odd.
0:25:00 > 0:25:02It was a question of making some adjustments
0:25:02 > 0:25:04of these two separate fields of activity.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08Well, he was tall and gangly, with his hair all over the place,
0:25:08 > 0:25:11and he was very, very relaxed. He was very easy to be with.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14He lived in a modern home, which was all full of rather eccentric things.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17I remember there were helium balloons on the ceiling,
0:25:17 > 0:25:21as I recall, and there was a work by Dieter Roth which he explained to me
0:25:21 > 0:25:24was made of porridge and polythene, which I found rather bewildering.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28At what point did you begin
0:25:28 > 0:25:32to use these mass media - Hollywood movies, photographs,
0:25:32 > 0:25:34advertising - in your painting?
0:25:34 > 0:25:38I wrote myself a programme in 1957,
0:25:38 > 0:25:41saying that these are the things that we were concerned with,
0:25:41 > 0:25:45almost making a list, making a table of concerns.
0:25:45 > 0:25:51And then I said, "If I were going to make a work of art
0:25:51 > 0:25:55"which satisfied these requirements, and among them were such items,
0:25:55 > 0:25:59"it could be witty, it could be glamorous..."
0:25:59 > 0:26:04Young, transient, sexy, gimmicky, mass-produced, big business,
0:26:04 > 0:26:07and low cost, as well.
0:26:07 > 0:26:09I mean that's, I think, all part and parcel
0:26:09 > 0:26:12of what Richard Hamilton felt pop art should be.
0:26:12 > 0:26:16The interesting thing about British pop art was that it came
0:26:16 > 0:26:20with a satiric edge to it at the same time, so it was...
0:26:20 > 0:26:24But it wasn't satirising, so much, America
0:26:24 > 0:26:28as satirising its own willingness to go belly-up to America.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31So it was saying, here are these American cultural forms,
0:26:31 > 0:26:35which we adore - and why not, because they are fantastic? -
0:26:35 > 0:26:39but you know, look at us, our willingness to abandon
0:26:39 > 0:26:45our own indigenous cultural forms, in such a shameless and craven way.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52Through the '60s, Hamilton became the chronicler
0:26:52 > 0:26:56of Swinging London, with an unerring eye for the iconic event.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, and Mayfair art gallery director Robert Fraser
0:27:01 > 0:27:06were handcuffed yesterday during journeys between Lewes Prison and the Chichester court.
0:27:07 > 0:27:13The newspaper cutting was shown to me by my girlfriend
0:27:13 > 0:27:18and I was very impressed by it, as a photograph.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21It seemed to be a very powerful image, altogether.
0:27:21 > 0:27:28On analysis, the photograph started to show all sorts of interest.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32It occurred to me that it was a flash photograph, for example,
0:27:32 > 0:27:36something that I hadn't used before. And when I began to draw from it,
0:27:36 > 0:27:40I realised that I had to make very heavy shadows.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44The gesture of a hand over the face -
0:27:44 > 0:27:48Mick Jagger is holding his hand over his face and there's a heavy-cast shadow underneath -
0:27:48 > 0:27:51seems like a gesture against the glare.
0:27:51 > 0:27:55Not only the glare of a flash, but the glare of publicity.
0:27:55 > 0:27:59In fact, Mick Jagger is making this gesture simply to demonstrate
0:27:59 > 0:28:03the handcuffs to the press, but he's doing it in a very theatrical way.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12Inspired by Hamilton and the excitement of the new pop culture,
0:28:12 > 0:28:15British art found a new confidence and energy.
0:28:18 > 0:28:23In 1961, a buzz gathered around the Young Contemporaries exhibition
0:28:23 > 0:28:28in London - a show dedicated to new work by British art students.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36Answer - the Young Contemporaries exhibition at a London Gallery.
0:28:36 > 0:28:37This exhibit is called Little Prince.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40Beyond telling you that, no comment.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44Next, 'Abstract Motive', a good title for a real puzzle in alabaster.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49One of the artists grabbing attention in the exhibition
0:28:49 > 0:28:51was Peter Blake.
0:28:52 > 0:28:56The son of an electrician, Blake had made his living as a teacher
0:28:56 > 0:28:58since leaving the Royal College of Art.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01But it was a remarkable self-portrait
0:29:01 > 0:29:03that really thrust him into the public eye.
0:29:14 > 0:29:16Blake's painting took the traditional model of
0:29:16 > 0:29:21the grand self-portrait, recasting it for a new, more democratic age.
0:29:29 > 0:29:33A year later, the 29-year-old Blake appeared in a film,
0:29:33 > 0:29:37directed by a young Ken Russell, called Pop Goes The Easel,
0:29:37 > 0:29:39for the BBC arts series Monitor.
0:29:41 > 0:29:43Good evening.
0:29:43 > 0:29:48Our programme tonight consists of one single film
0:29:48 > 0:29:50that we made about four young artists.
0:29:50 > 0:29:55They're four painters, who turned for their subject matter to the world of pop art -
0:29:55 > 0:29:59the world of popular imagination, the world of film stars,
0:29:59 > 0:30:04The Twist, science fiction, pop singers - a world which you can dismiss,
0:30:04 > 0:30:08if you feel so inclined, as being tawdry and second-rate,
0:30:08 > 0:30:12but a world, all the same, in which everybody, to some degree, anyway, lives,
0:30:12 > 0:30:13whether we like it or not.
0:30:25 > 0:30:28In the film, Blake is shown indulging his love
0:30:28 > 0:30:31of the worlds of the circus and music hall,
0:30:31 > 0:30:32and the glamour of Hollywood.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41This is a Kim Novak wall.
0:30:41 > 0:30:42I've done other walls -
0:30:42 > 0:30:48the Everley Brothers, Superman, Shirley Temple, Laverne Baker.
0:30:48 > 0:30:50They're usually entertainers.
0:30:50 > 0:30:54HE HUMS
0:31:00 > 0:31:04This is the Love Wall. It's like a love shop, really.
0:31:04 > 0:31:06All the postcards are in the windows.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09When I did this picture, people said,
0:31:09 > 0:31:11"Why did you stick the things on?
0:31:11 > 0:31:12"Why don't you paint them?"
0:31:12 > 0:31:15And when I do paint them, they say
0:31:15 > 0:31:18"Why did you bother to paint them? Why didn't you just stick them on?"
0:31:18 > 0:31:20You just can't win.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27The arrival of pop art coincided with the rise of a new mass medium
0:31:27 > 0:31:31still discovering its creative possibilities - television.
0:31:33 > 0:31:38Pop Goes The Easel is the defining arts documentary of the 1960s,
0:31:38 > 0:31:41the defining film about pop art.
0:31:41 > 0:31:43It's a free-wheeling,
0:31:43 > 0:31:47open, fluid, exciting, youthful,
0:31:47 > 0:31:51glorious world.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54You actually see them at work, but you don't hear them talk
0:31:54 > 0:31:59in any kind of rigorous or thoughtful or deep way about their work.
0:31:59 > 0:32:00It's a film of surfaces.
0:32:02 > 0:32:08A film that is completely appropriate for its subject matter.
0:32:09 > 0:32:12This picture, it's an oil painting.
0:32:12 > 0:32:14It's called On The Balcony
0:32:14 > 0:32:18and there are about 27 different versions of On The Balcony in it.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25Blake's picture was a playful take
0:32:25 > 0:32:28on Manet's painting from 1868.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31Fine art in cheerful co-existence
0:32:31 > 0:32:32with popular culture.
0:32:35 > 0:32:37Blake filled his work with the imagery
0:32:37 > 0:32:40of an exuberant consumer age,
0:32:40 > 0:32:42channelling the energy of magazines,
0:32:42 > 0:32:44advertising,
0:32:44 > 0:32:47movies and, of course, pop music.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51In 1967 came his most celebrated
0:32:51 > 0:32:52fusion of art
0:32:52 > 0:32:54and popular culture yet.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57# Sergeant Pepper's lonely, Sergeant Pepper's lonely... #
0:32:57 > 0:33:02Blake's now-legendary design for the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album
0:33:02 > 0:33:06was a gloriously cheeky mash-up of heroes and villains,
0:33:06 > 0:33:10Hollywood stars and musical idols,
0:33:10 > 0:33:13that was also a uniquely-British bit of pop art.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20In 1977, Blake talked about the album's conception,
0:33:20 > 0:33:22while being filmed by the BBC,
0:33:22 > 0:33:25painting a portrait of his friend, the model Twiggy.
0:33:28 > 0:33:31Simply, the idea was that they were a band
0:33:31 > 0:33:33and they'd just done a concert in the park,
0:33:33 > 0:33:36and they've finished the concert, they've come to have a photo taken
0:33:36 > 0:33:38and this is the crowd looking at them.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42Then, I thought, "Well, if we did it by making life-size cut-outs,
0:33:42 > 0:33:44"we could have anybody in the world.
0:33:44 > 0:33:48"It could be a magic crowd of anybody."
0:33:48 > 0:33:52I can see Brando, Monroe, Dylan.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56- I mean the whole thing has always been breathed in mystery...- I know!
0:33:56 > 0:33:59..this album, mainly contrived, I mean we didn't do it.
0:33:59 > 0:34:03It just...I mean, when there were rumours that Paul was dead
0:34:03 > 0:34:07and this was a stand-in, one of the rumours was that because this hand
0:34:07 > 0:34:11was above his head, this was the sign that he'd died.
0:34:11 > 0:34:14In fact, it's Izzy Bon waving to his fans, you know.
0:34:16 > 0:34:21What Peter Blake did was make modern art accessible.
0:34:21 > 0:34:24He broke down the barriers between high culture
0:34:24 > 0:34:27and popular culture, between fine art and folk art,
0:34:27 > 0:34:30and he brought them together into this wonderful combination
0:34:30 > 0:34:35that was rich and intelligent and elusive and, above all, fun.
0:34:35 > 0:34:37I mean, that's the great thing about Peter Blake's work -
0:34:37 > 0:34:38it's nearly always fun.
0:34:44 > 0:34:48The fun wasn't over. At least, not yet.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52The protests and the violence of the late '60s were still far away.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55For now, many artists were feeling liberated
0:34:55 > 0:35:00by a sense of possibility, creative energy, sexual freedom.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04London remained the centre of this creative explosion.
0:35:08 > 0:35:10And to London's Royal College of Art
0:35:10 > 0:35:13came a precocious young student from Yorkshire - David Hockney.
0:35:16 > 0:35:1817 years later,
0:35:18 > 0:35:22David Hockney looked back on his early experience at the college.
0:35:24 > 0:35:26When I first came to London,
0:35:26 > 0:35:28I thought it was wonderful.
0:35:28 > 0:35:31I mean, after Bradford, of course, it was wonderful.
0:35:31 > 0:35:35I assumed all the students would be really good
0:35:35 > 0:35:37and much better than I was,
0:35:37 > 0:35:41and the more they looked like artists, the better I thought...
0:35:41 > 0:35:43You know, the bigger the beard,
0:35:43 > 0:35:46I thought they must be really fantastic artists.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49But you realise it's not true,
0:35:49 > 0:35:50after a while,
0:35:50 > 0:35:53because you look around. I'd look around and think,
0:35:53 > 0:35:55"Well, maybe they didn't know any more than I know."
0:35:57 > 0:36:00Hockney's remarkable talent was spotted early on
0:36:00 > 0:36:06and he was selling his first paintings before graduating from the college in 1962.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11Unlike other British artists, Hockney wasn't satisfied
0:36:11 > 0:36:14with observing American culture from afar.
0:36:14 > 0:36:16He wanted to immerse himself in it.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21Attracted to the vibrant gay community of Los Angeles,
0:36:21 > 0:36:24he moved there at the age of 26.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31In a BBC profile from 1981,
0:36:31 > 0:36:36Hockney spoke about his first memories of being in California.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41Within one week of coming here, I'd never driven before,
0:36:41 > 0:36:45I'd got a driving licence, bought a car, got a studio.
0:36:45 > 0:36:47I thought, "This is the place".
0:36:47 > 0:36:50And I thought, "This is so sexy, all these incredible boys."
0:36:50 > 0:36:53Everybody wore little white socks, then.
0:36:53 > 0:36:56It's got all the energy of the United States
0:36:56 > 0:36:58with the Mediterranean thrown in,
0:36:58 > 0:37:01which I think is a wonderful combination.
0:37:03 > 0:37:06It even looks a bit like Italy.
0:37:07 > 0:37:11Hockney was mesmerised by the outdoor lifestyle
0:37:11 > 0:37:13and affluence of his new home.
0:37:13 > 0:37:18In a burst of creative energy, Hockney produced painting
0:37:18 > 0:37:21after painting inspired by life in California.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31Their brilliant colours and simple symmetrical composition
0:37:31 > 0:37:34established Hockney as a major 20th century artist.
0:37:44 > 0:37:47Marvellous shadow.
0:37:47 > 0:37:55Perhaps the most celebrated was his 1967 painting, A Bigger Splash.
0:37:57 > 0:38:03What I quite liked about doing it was the perversity of painting
0:38:03 > 0:38:06something that lasts for one second,
0:38:06 > 0:38:11but it took me seven days' work to paint the splash itself.
0:38:11 > 0:38:15If you look carefully, it's painted in single lines with a small brush.
0:38:15 > 0:38:21At the age of 43, Hockney reflected on what kept him painting.
0:38:22 > 0:38:26I mean, I assume I get better, you get better,
0:38:26 > 0:38:30but I've never really found it easy.
0:38:30 > 0:38:33But you don't want to find it easy, either.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36I mean often, of course, you deliberately make things,
0:38:36 > 0:38:39you've to make things difficult for yourself.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43Certain things I could do easy, but then you don't want to do them.
0:38:43 > 0:38:45I mean, I don't want to...
0:38:45 > 0:38:51Em, you know, I could paint ten pictures of swimming pools
0:38:51 > 0:38:54make it look rather nice or something.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57But I don't want to do that. It would bore me, which I don't want to do.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01I don't mind boring you, but I don't want to bore myself.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11While Hockney drew on the glamour and sunlight of Californian life,
0:39:11 > 0:39:15another artist was looking to the urban detritus of New York
0:39:15 > 0:39:21for his art, and preparing to take modern art in a whole new direction.
0:39:24 > 0:39:29Robert Rauschenberg had grown up in Texas of part Cherokee parents,
0:39:29 > 0:39:32and had gone to art school in New York,
0:39:32 > 0:39:35when abstract expressionism was all the rage.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39But he wanted to break away and find his own style
0:39:39 > 0:39:44and as a struggling artist, turned to the streets for inspiration.
0:39:45 > 0:39:51Interviewed at the age of 55, Rauschenberg recalled the times when he used to hunt for junk.
0:39:53 > 0:39:57Actually I had a, kind of, a house rule.
0:39:57 > 0:40:03If I walked completely around the block, and I didn't find enough to work with,
0:40:03 > 0:40:09I could pick one other block, in any direction, to walk around,
0:40:09 > 0:40:15but that was it. Whatever I did had to look at least as interesting
0:40:15 > 0:40:19as anything that was going on outside.
0:40:19 > 0:40:24I tended to work in things that were either self abstract,
0:40:24 > 0:40:26that no-one knew
0:40:26 > 0:40:29what this object was,
0:40:29 > 0:40:31or it had been so mangled
0:40:31 > 0:40:32that you couldn't recognise it
0:40:32 > 0:40:38any more, or something so obvious that you didn't think about it.
0:40:39 > 0:40:44Rauschenberg would take all sorts of discarded items back to his studio -
0:40:44 > 0:40:47clothing, traffic cones, furniture,
0:40:47 > 0:40:50even stuffed animals, and integrate them into his art.
0:40:52 > 0:40:55He called these works "combines".
0:40:56 > 0:41:00One of the first was Bed, from 1955.
0:41:00 > 0:41:03An old quilt and a pillow, is pinned to a frame,
0:41:03 > 0:41:06then, violently smothered with paint.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11Most critics were appalled.
0:41:11 > 0:41:15Time Magazine said it seemed to show the "vestiges of an axe murder".
0:41:16 > 0:41:19But others saw exciting new possibilities
0:41:19 > 0:41:21being opened up for art.
0:41:23 > 0:41:25I think to get a sense of the impact Bed must have had,
0:41:25 > 0:41:29you have to consider it in relation to what had come immediately before,
0:41:29 > 0:41:33with the New York School of Painters, the abstract expressionists,
0:41:33 > 0:41:34led by Jackson Pollock.
0:41:34 > 0:41:38For them, painting was a very serious enterprise.
0:41:38 > 0:41:40And, all of a sudden,
0:41:40 > 0:41:43here pops up this very charming young southern artist,
0:41:43 > 0:41:47who's presenting a duvet in a gallery, eventually,
0:41:47 > 0:41:50covered with splashy paintwork. "There's the pillow."
0:41:50 > 0:41:54It must have seemed completely anarchic.
0:41:55 > 0:41:56This Bed one,
0:41:56 > 0:41:59I think that I'd like to, if you're agreeable,
0:41:59 > 0:42:02I'd quite like it to go in its own space on that wall down there,
0:42:02 > 0:42:05- the tall, narrow one. Do you think that's a good idea?- Sure.
0:42:05 > 0:42:11In 1964, the BBC's Monitor programme filmed Rauschenberg
0:42:11 > 0:42:14during preparations for an exhibition of his work in London.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18He described how that anarchy, that sense of the unexpected,
0:42:18 > 0:42:21was at the core of his art.
0:42:21 > 0:42:24I wouldn't be interested in any preconception.
0:42:24 > 0:42:28I'm not interested in doing what I know I can do
0:42:28 > 0:42:30or what I think I can do.
0:42:30 > 0:42:35I want to be both a spectator and the painter.
0:42:36 > 0:42:40It's a matter of greed. Um...
0:42:40 > 0:42:42You like to be surprised?
0:42:44 > 0:42:49Yes, I have to, otherwise, it doesn't...work.
0:42:49 > 0:42:50When you're working on a painting,
0:42:50 > 0:42:55you have to leave room to take advantage of what is happening.
0:42:55 > 0:43:01Otherwise, it's just a series of dry manipulations.
0:43:01 > 0:43:08And it's very exciting to put paint on and watch it run.
0:43:08 > 0:43:13I mean, the possibilities in any material are so enormous
0:43:13 > 0:43:18and it's that constant investigation of what it can do
0:43:18 > 0:43:21that does make it exciting.
0:43:24 > 0:43:26Rauschenberg followed Bed
0:43:26 > 0:43:29with a bold, often enigmatic, series of combines,
0:43:29 > 0:43:30working, as he put it,
0:43:30 > 0:43:33"in the gap between art and life".
0:43:38 > 0:43:43In the 60s, he started adding screen printed images to his collages,
0:43:43 > 0:43:46photographs, press clippings,
0:43:46 > 0:43:49scraps from an increasingly image-saturated culture.
0:43:52 > 0:43:5630 years later, he was visited by the art critic Robert Hughes
0:43:56 > 0:43:58for the BBC.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02Wandering around strange places,
0:44:02 > 0:44:05looking in every corner...
0:44:05 > 0:44:08I don't know, keeps you refreshed.
0:44:08 > 0:44:09Yeah, I guess it must.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13Because you can bring back all sorts of solidified memories
0:44:13 > 0:44:14from the places you go to
0:44:14 > 0:44:17and then, they surprise you when they come out of the...
0:44:17 > 0:44:20Well, it's all very different. Once, it gets to be a photograph
0:44:20 > 0:44:23and then, it gets blown up and then, it's a silkscreen.
0:44:23 > 0:44:25And then, colour follows.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27And then, there's a juxtaposition of imagery
0:44:27 > 0:44:31that is, hopefully, non-logical.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35Were you really stressing the idea of a work of art
0:44:35 > 0:44:38being a puzzle with a solution that the viewer has to work towards?
0:44:38 > 0:44:45I just collected a bunch of old posters or signs
0:44:45 > 0:44:49and tried to make them as diverse as possible
0:44:49 > 0:44:56and the colours supposedly was the key about how they were to be read.
0:44:56 > 0:44:58But the whole thing was a fantasy, somewhat.
0:44:58 > 0:45:01So you do establish these kinds of...?
0:45:01 > 0:45:03You do. Those are your experiences.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06No, no, you're drawing the pictures, doctor.
0:45:06 > 0:45:11Yes, but you're the one who has all the references,
0:45:11 > 0:45:14because of your experience.
0:45:14 > 0:45:17And so, you're happy to let people make them up as they go along.
0:45:17 > 0:45:18I insist on it.
0:45:22 > 0:45:25Rauschenberg's often-unsettling work was a long way
0:45:25 > 0:45:30from the light-hearted celebration of Americana of British pop art.
0:45:31 > 0:45:35For most American artists, American popular culture was the enemy -
0:45:35 > 0:45:38deadening, inescapable, commercial.
0:45:43 > 0:45:46So when Roy Lichtenstein's first one-man show
0:45:46 > 0:45:49opened in New York in 1962,
0:45:49 > 0:45:53it was evident that something new was happening to American art.
0:45:53 > 0:45:55In the brightly-coloured melodramas
0:45:55 > 0:45:57of comic book fantasy,
0:45:57 > 0:46:01Lichtenstein found a peculiarly 20th-century fascination.
0:46:03 > 0:46:04Critics scoffed,
0:46:04 > 0:46:08but a handful of canny buyers recognised what was happening.
0:46:09 > 0:46:11Before the show even opened,
0:46:11 > 0:46:14all 15 works had sold.
0:46:17 > 0:46:20Some took his pictures to be satire or parody.
0:46:20 > 0:46:23But as Lichtenstein explained in a BBC interview,
0:46:23 > 0:46:26his work was based on a real affection and respect
0:46:26 > 0:46:28for the pulp fiction he was drawing on.
0:46:30 > 0:46:33It's dealing with the images that have come about
0:46:33 > 0:46:35in the commercial world and it's using that.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38Because there are certain things about it
0:46:38 > 0:46:43which are impressive or bold or something
0:46:43 > 0:46:47and it's that quality of the images that I'm interested in.
0:46:47 > 0:46:51But it's not saying that commercial art is terrible
0:46:51 > 0:46:53or look what we've come to.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56That may be a sociological fact,
0:46:56 > 0:46:59but that's not what this art is about.
0:46:59 > 0:47:03Roy Lichtenstein was the son of a wealthy Jewish property developer.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07Just five years before the one-man show that would make his name,
0:47:07 > 0:47:10Lichtenstein was a failed artist in his thirties.
0:47:11 > 0:47:14Uninspired by the abstract expressionism
0:47:14 > 0:47:16that dominated American art,
0:47:16 > 0:47:19but struggling to find a style of his own.
0:47:19 > 0:47:21One night, he was reading to his young sons
0:47:21 > 0:47:24when something caught his eye in a children's book.
0:47:26 > 0:47:30Lichtenstein started to draw the cartoon characters he saw.
0:47:32 > 0:47:37In 1961, he produced a large-scale painting called Look, Mickey.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43Lichtenstein enlarged the cartoon image onto a huge canvas,
0:47:43 > 0:47:45using bold primary colours
0:47:45 > 0:47:48and adding comic book speech bubbles.
0:47:50 > 0:47:52I think he was drawn to them
0:47:52 > 0:47:56because they were looked upon as discredited.
0:47:56 > 0:48:01Nobody thought of comic book art as art, as high art.
0:48:01 > 0:48:04It turned art on its head.
0:48:09 > 0:48:14Comic book images used tiny printed dots known as Ben-Day dots
0:48:14 > 0:48:17to give an illusion of depth, or light and shade.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23Lichtenstein faithfully replicated the dots,
0:48:23 > 0:48:25and all the graphic devices of comic book art,
0:48:25 > 0:48:27in his huge canvases,
0:48:27 > 0:48:29exaggerating the familiar
0:48:29 > 0:48:31and making it strange.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40The original cartoon style just seemed to have...
0:48:40 > 0:48:43every element necessary for me.
0:48:43 > 0:48:47The comic book image, it had all the mechanical things,
0:48:47 > 0:48:50the dots, the black lines around everything,
0:48:50 > 0:48:52the more or less primary colours.
0:48:52 > 0:48:55All of this was just something ready-made
0:48:55 > 0:48:58to symbolise what we were really getting into -
0:48:58 > 0:49:01a, kind of, ready-made and plastic era.
0:49:03 > 0:49:08He's saying this is the nature of culture in the mid-20th century,
0:49:08 > 0:49:11this is the nature of consumerist culture, of mass media,
0:49:11 > 0:49:14where things are reproduced ad infinitum.
0:49:14 > 0:49:17Some kernel of authenticity, has been lost
0:49:17 > 0:49:22and instead, we live in this hall of mirrors, all about reproduction,
0:49:22 > 0:49:24imagery going round and round and round,
0:49:24 > 0:49:27losing that sense of individuality.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34By taking a single cartoon image
0:49:34 > 0:49:36and removing it from its original context,
0:49:36 > 0:49:39Lichtenstein made it somehow mysterious,
0:49:39 > 0:49:42enticing the viewer to invent their own narrative.
0:49:48 > 0:49:52I think blowing them up does get you to examine them more closely,
0:49:52 > 0:49:55you get the idea that it's kind of funny,
0:49:55 > 0:49:57the way these things are made -
0:49:57 > 0:50:00that a girl will have really yellow hair,
0:50:00 > 0:50:02and she'll really have red dots on her face
0:50:02 > 0:50:07and blue dots in her eyes or whatever the cliche is,
0:50:07 > 0:50:10and we've taken this for real, kind of, without thinking about it,
0:50:10 > 0:50:14and now, we can see how artificial and abstract it really is.
0:50:18 > 0:50:20By the time this picture was painted,
0:50:20 > 0:50:22the critics had stopped carping
0:50:22 > 0:50:25and Lichtenstein was the toast of the art world.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31Why do we care about Lichtenstein? There's no should, you know.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34I mean, you don't have to care about Lichtenstein, at all.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37But at a time when high culture was threatened by the mainstream,
0:50:37 > 0:50:40he actually took what was threatening it
0:50:40 > 0:50:42and turned it into a strength
0:50:42 > 0:50:44and reinvigorated art in the process.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47That's quite a nifty trick to pull off.
0:50:47 > 0:50:51But he did it with great aplomb and style and wit.
0:50:54 > 0:50:58But the darling of the new American pop art had a rival.
0:51:01 > 0:51:06He faced competition from a shy, aspiring artist named Andy Warhol.
0:51:08 > 0:51:12In the 1950s, Andy Warhol was working in New York
0:51:12 > 0:51:14as an illustrator in advertising.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18He found his inspiration in the well-stocked aisles
0:51:18 > 0:51:20of the American supermarket.
0:51:25 > 0:51:29In 1962, in his first one-man exhibition,
0:51:29 > 0:51:31Warhol displayed 32 paintings
0:51:31 > 0:51:34of different varieties of Campbell's soups.
0:51:38 > 0:51:43Reactions ranged from bewildered amusement to plain bewilderment.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46The Canadian government spokesman said
0:51:46 > 0:51:49that your art could not be described as original sculpture.
0:51:49 > 0:51:50Would you agree with that?
0:51:50 > 0:51:52Oh, yes.
0:51:52 > 0:51:53Why do you agree?
0:51:53 > 0:51:55Well, because it's not original.
0:51:55 > 0:51:58You have just, then, copied a common item?
0:51:58 > 0:51:59Yes.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01Why have you bothered to do that?
0:52:01 > 0:52:04Why not create something new?
0:52:04 > 0:52:05Because it's easier to do.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08Andy would always say the worst thing,
0:52:08 > 0:52:11the worst thing that you had at the back of your mind.
0:52:11 > 0:52:14By responding in that way,
0:52:14 > 0:52:17he amused himself.
0:52:17 > 0:52:21He also took away all the sting
0:52:21 > 0:52:24and all the attacks that can come in an interview.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27He, sort of, deadened them.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30Born to immigrant Slovak parents,
0:52:30 > 0:52:34the young Andy Warhol was a shy, introverted child.
0:52:34 > 0:52:37Awkward and often inarticulate,
0:52:37 > 0:52:39Warhol instinctively grasped
0:52:39 > 0:52:41the essentials of American popular culture,
0:52:41 > 0:52:45from its mass-produced objects of desire
0:52:45 > 0:52:48to its obsession with celebrity and fame.
0:52:51 > 0:52:54His silk screen prints of American icons
0:52:54 > 0:52:56strikingly brought the two together,
0:52:56 > 0:53:00most famously in his series of images of Elvis
0:53:00 > 0:53:02and Marilyn Monroe.
0:53:05 > 0:53:10In some way, by mass-producing an image again, and again and again,
0:53:10 > 0:53:12you almost drain it of meaning.
0:53:12 > 0:53:14The thing that was so special about Marilyn Monroe
0:53:14 > 0:53:15the fact that she was unique,
0:53:15 > 0:53:17uniquely beautiful, maybe,
0:53:17 > 0:53:20becomes defeated by the mass production of the imagery.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28"I want to be a machine," he said
0:53:28 > 0:53:31and he called his New York apartment The Factory.
0:53:33 > 0:53:36Here, he gathered around him an entourage of admirers,
0:53:36 > 0:53:38assistants and hangers-on,
0:53:38 > 0:53:42making prints, taking photos, producing films.
0:53:44 > 0:53:49In 1965, the writer Susan Sontag visited Warhol in his studio
0:53:49 > 0:53:51for BBC's Monitor programme.
0:53:56 > 0:53:57Andy! He's got Dionne Warwick on.
0:54:00 > 0:54:01- Oh, hi.- Is Andy in?
0:54:01 > 0:54:02HE LAUGHS
0:54:02 > 0:54:05- Is he in?- The camera's already rolling?- Is he here?
0:54:05 > 0:54:08- No.- Oh, Christ, he told me to come today.
0:54:08 > 0:54:11I know, so come on in.
0:54:11 > 0:54:13I brought the BBC with me.
0:54:13 > 0:54:14Who are the BBC?
0:54:16 > 0:54:18Hiya.
0:54:18 > 0:54:19He's camera shy.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23- Hi.- Hi. I brought the BBC.
0:54:23 > 0:54:24THEY LAUGH
0:54:24 > 0:54:25Do you mind?
0:54:26 > 0:54:28I thought maybe you'd like to see the Eclair.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31Oh, I do, yeah, I really want to see the Eclair.
0:54:31 > 0:54:33Can we see the Eclair?
0:54:33 > 0:54:35Yeah, look, it's doing you right now.
0:54:35 > 0:54:37- Oh, wow.- All right.
0:54:37 > 0:54:39It's, you know, it's like spontaneous.
0:54:39 > 0:54:41- Wow.- OK.- Wow.
0:54:41 > 0:54:43Can I really see the camera now?
0:54:43 > 0:54:45What...? You mean, while it's watching you?
0:54:45 > 0:54:48- Oh, yeah.- You watch it and it watches you.
0:54:50 > 0:54:52Can we do a cheese movie?
0:54:52 > 0:54:55All you have to do is say, "Cheese...cheese."
0:54:55 > 0:54:56All right.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00So the next three minutes could be a cheese movie, all right?
0:55:00 > 0:55:02What's the spirit of this?
0:55:02 > 0:55:05You don't have to do anything,
0:55:05 > 0:55:07just what you're doing.
0:55:07 > 0:55:09Can I move?
0:55:09 > 0:55:11Yeah, you can move,
0:55:11 > 0:55:12but not too much.
0:55:14 > 0:55:20The most influential artist of the late 20th century is Andy Warhol,
0:55:20 > 0:55:27because Andy addressed all the issues of the day.
0:55:27 > 0:55:30He did all of the things that an artist might do at that time
0:55:30 > 0:55:32in a way that nobody else was doing.
0:55:32 > 0:55:34He loved the movies and he loves stars,
0:55:34 > 0:55:38so he creates his own cinema and he has his own stars.
0:55:38 > 0:55:42In a sense, he recreates the cultural world.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45A few years later, Warhol was followed by the BBC,
0:55:45 > 0:55:48on a trip to London to promote his latest film.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51'First stop, the Hyde Park home
0:55:51 > 0:55:53'of Britain's premier film critic,
0:55:53 > 0:55:54'Dilys Powell.'
0:55:54 > 0:55:56I know you love the movies,
0:55:56 > 0:55:59I'm going to ask you if you have a favourite film star.
0:55:59 > 0:56:03It's always a question that people ask me and I can't think of anybody, I can't think of any names.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06- No, I really like everybody.- You like everybody?- Yeah, I really do.
0:56:06 > 0:56:09I've seen, up to now, Chelsea Girls, in a very sort of truncated version,
0:56:09 > 0:56:11and I really didn't know what was going on, it was so cut.
0:56:11 > 0:56:16And I saw Bike Boy and Flesh, which I really liked very much, indeed.
0:56:16 > 0:56:18What we do is we're just learning how to make movies.
0:56:18 > 0:56:21Yes, but you do it with real enthusiasm, don't you?
0:56:21 > 0:56:24- It's so nice.- Yeah. - All of you, all three of you.
0:56:24 > 0:56:26Yes, marvellous. Yes, marvellous, yes.
0:56:28 > 0:56:32Warhol said pop was about liking everything.
0:56:32 > 0:56:35Certainly, the art market liked Warhol - and still does.
0:56:35 > 0:56:40In 2012, his 1963 painting, Double Elvis,
0:56:40 > 0:56:43sold at auction for 33 million.
0:56:46 > 0:56:48Not everyone, though, is convinced.
0:56:50 > 0:56:56Warhol is probably my least favourite artist of the 20th century
0:56:56 > 0:57:00and I think, you know, it's an argument I've had with many, many...
0:57:00 > 0:57:04kind of nabobs of the contemporary art world,
0:57:04 > 0:57:07is to say to them, "Do you really want to sit
0:57:07 > 0:57:10"in front of an Andy Warhol silkscreen print
0:57:10 > 0:57:14"for an hour or two, as you might sit
0:57:14 > 0:57:16"in front of a canvas by Francis Bacon, for example,
0:57:16 > 0:57:18"and just sop it up?
0:57:18 > 0:57:21"Is there enough there to aesthetically interest you
0:57:21 > 0:57:22"for a long period of time?"
0:57:22 > 0:57:26Andy Warhol's a brilliant, you know, symbol of America, really,
0:57:26 > 0:57:28and he's managed to do a great thing,
0:57:28 > 0:57:31which is be iconic and ironic at the same time in his work,
0:57:31 > 0:57:34which is... A lot of artists can't do that.
0:57:34 > 0:57:36And I think, you know, he, kind of, poked the finger at America,
0:57:36 > 0:57:38pointed, laughed at America,
0:57:38 > 0:57:42and, you know, kind of, embraced its weaknesses and its strengths.
0:57:44 > 0:57:45Genius or showman,
0:57:45 > 0:57:49Warhol brought to a close 20 years of dramatic change
0:57:49 > 0:57:50in the story of art.
0:57:57 > 0:57:58Within two decades,
0:57:58 > 0:58:00you've gone from the very dark existential angst
0:58:00 > 0:58:05of artists like Bacon, responding to the cruelty and barbarity
0:58:05 > 0:58:06of the Second World War,
0:58:06 > 0:58:08to a much more glamorous
0:58:08 > 0:58:13and shiny, exciting, bright, new art movement, known as Pop.
0:58:13 > 0:58:19You find this explosion, right across the arts, of creativity,
0:58:19 > 0:58:21and new modes, new ways of making art,
0:58:21 > 0:58:24which, when you look back now,
0:58:24 > 0:58:27I think seems like a real golden age.
0:58:27 > 0:58:30Whenever I think about the artists who were working in the 60s,
0:58:30 > 0:58:32they seem completely heroic.
0:58:32 > 0:58:35What they were doing is STILL completely scintillating
0:58:35 > 0:58:36and exhilarating.
0:58:38 > 0:58:42But a new era of unrest was dawning...
0:58:44 > 0:58:47..and a new generation of artists was waiting
0:58:47 > 0:58:51to redefine the meaning of art itself.
0:58:51 > 0:58:52MUSIC: "No Fun" by The Stooges
0:58:54 > 0:58:58# No fun, my babe
0:58:58 > 0:58:59# No fun
0:59:02 > 0:59:06# No fun, my babe
0:59:06 > 0:59:07# No fun
0:59:10 > 0:59:14# No fun to hang around
0:59:14 > 0:59:16# Or feeling that same old way... #
0:59:16 > 0:59:19Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd