Pop Art Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in London

Self-Portrait Andy Warhol, 1964. Acrylic, silver paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, 508 x 406mm Stefan T. Edlis Collection © Licensed by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York and DACS, London 2007

This major international exhibition, held at the National Portrait Gallery in London, from 11 October 2007 to January 20 2008, is the first to explore the role and significance of portraiture within Pop Art, one of the most important and popular artistic movements of the twentieth century. Presenting a visual dialogue between American and British Pop, the exhibition focuses on key portraits by leading artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton.
Pop Art flourished in Britain and the USA during the 1950s and 1960s and was closely connected with the rise of consumer culture. For that reason Pop is usually seen as being concerned with the depiction of objects. Pop Art Portraits takes a different view. It shows how Pop artists reinvigorated and redefined portraiture, creating new kinds of portraits: from those depicting recognizable sitters, to portraits with a hidden or imaginary subject.
The exhibition is divided into six sections, including screenings of Warhol’s influential Screen Tests and a secular ‘chapel’ devoted to portraits of film star Marilyn Monroe:

Origins of Pop Art
Portraits and Style
Fantasy
Pop Art and Film
Marilyn
Innocence
Experience

This exhibition is really well made, and all the pieces are the ones you've seen in every book. I really liked the Andy Warhol portrait used as the official visual of the exhibition, as well as the silver Elvis, both by Warhol. Screen tests are really not to be missed. But the exhibition is not only about Warhol, and most of the famous artists of Pop Art are displayed.
To learn more :
www.npg.org.uk/popart/popart_home.htm