Lawrence Alloway
Encyclopedia
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. He first used the term "mass popular art" in the mid-1950s and used the term Pop Art
in the 1960s to indicate that art has a basis in the popular culture
of its day and takes from it a faith in the power of images.
artists that emerged in Britain after the Second World War: Robert Adams, Terry Frost
, Adrian Heath
, Anthony Hill, Roger Hilton
, Kenneth Martin
, Mary Martin
, Victor Pasmore
and William Scott
.
Alloway's theory of art reflecting the concrete materials of modern life gave way to an interest in mass-media and consumerism. Alloway joined the Independent Group in 1952 and lectured on his theory of a circular link between popular cultural low art and high art. From 1955 to 1960 he was Assistant Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts
in London. He organised the exhibition Collages and Objects (1954). In 1956 Alloway contributed to organising the exhibition This Is Tomorrow
and reviewing that show, and other works he had seen on a trip to the U.S., in a 1958 article, first used the term "mass popular art".
. He was appointed senior curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
from 1961 until 1966. In 1963 he organized the pop art show, Six Painters and the Object. He chaired the jury awarding the 1964 Guggenheim Awards, one of which was refused by the painter Asger Jorn
.
In 1966 he curated the influential Systemic Painting exhibition that showcased Geometric abstraction in the American art world via Minimal art, Shaped canvas
, and Hard-edge painting
. Alloway was an ardent supporter of Abstract expressionism
and of American Pop artists such as Roy Lichtenstein
, Claes Oldenburg
, and Andy Warhol
. In 1967/68 he joined the Art department faculty as a lecturer at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
, where McHale and Buckminster Fuller
were also on staff at the SIU Design Department. In the 1970s he wrote for The Nation
and Artforum
and lectured at the State University of New York, Stony Brook where he was appointed professor of art history. There he co-founded the magazine Art Criticism with the critic Donald Kuspit
.
In the same year of 1966 Lawrence Alloway coined the term Systemic Art
, to "describe a type of abstract art characterized by the use of very simple standardized forms, usually geometric in character, either in a single concentrated image or repeated in a system arranged according to a clearly visible principle of organization".
in his own words Alloway said: "The term, originated in England by me, as a description of mass communications, especially, but not exclusively, visual ones."
In a footnote to his essay Pop Art
the words, he goes on to say: "The first published appearance of the terms that I know is: Lawrence Alloway, "The Arts and the Mass Media," Architectural Design, February, 1958, London. Ideas on Pop Art
were discussed by Reyner Banham
, Theo Crosby, Frank Cordell, Toni del Renzio
, Richard Hamilton
, Nigel Henderson, John McHale
, Eduardo Paolozzi
, Alison and Peter Smithson
, sculptor William Turnbull, and myself."
However there are contradictory recollections as to the origin of the term: according to John McHale
's son his father first coined the term in 1954 in conversation with Frank Cordell, and the term was then used in Independent Group
discussions by mid 1955. Alloway used the term 'mass popular art' in his oft quoted 1958 article but he did not use the specific term "Pop Art".
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
art critic and curator who worked in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
from the 1960s. In the 1950s he was a leading member of the Independent Group
Independent Group
The Independent Group met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London from 1952-55. The IG consisted of painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics who wanted to challenge prevailing modernist approaches to culture. They introduced mass culture into debates about high culture,...
in the UK and in the 1960s was an influential writer and curator in the US. He first used the term "mass popular art" in the mid-1950s and used the term 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...
in the 1960s to indicate that art has a basis in the popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
of its day and takes from it a faith in the power of images.
Early career and the Independent Group
Alloway started writing art reviews for "Art News" in 1953. In his 1954 book Nine Abstract Artists he promoted the ConstructivistConstructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
artists that emerged in Britain after the Second World War: Robert Adams, Terry Frost
Terry Frost
Sir Terry Frost RA was an English artist noted for his abstracts....
, Adrian Heath
Adrian Heath (painter)
Adrian Heath was a 20th century British painter.Heath was born in Burma and attended Bryanston School in Dorset, southern England. In 1938, he studied art under Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn. In 1939 and 1945–47, he attended the Slade School of Art...
, Anthony Hill, Roger Hilton
Roger Hilton
Roger Hilton CBE was a pioneer of abstract art in post-war Britain. He was born in 1911 in Northwood, London and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London under Henry Tonks and also in Paris, where he developed links with painters on the Continent.In World War II he served in the Army, part...
, Kenneth Martin
Kenneth Martin
Kenneth Martin was an English painter and sculptor who along with his wife Mary Martin and Victor Pasmore was a leading figure in the revival of Constructivism in Britain and America in the 1940s....
, Mary Martin
Mary Martin (Artist)
Mary Adela Martin was a British sculptor best known for her work with her husband Kenneth Martin....
, Victor Pasmore
Victor Pasmore
Edwin John Victor Pasmore was a British artist and architect. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s.-Biography:...
and William Scott
William Scott (artist)
William Scott was a British artist known for still life and abstract painting. He is the most internationally celebrated of 20th century Ulster painters.-Early life and education:...
.
Alloway's theory of art reflecting the concrete materials of modern life gave way to an interest in mass-media and consumerism. Alloway joined the Independent Group in 1952 and lectured on his theory of a circular link between popular cultural low art and high art. From 1955 to 1960 he was Assistant Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
in London. He organised the exhibition Collages and Objects (1954). In 1956 Alloway contributed to organising the exhibition This Is Tomorrow
This is Tomorrow
This Is Tomorrow was a seminal art exhibition in August 1956 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, facilitated by curator Bryan Robertson. The core of the exhibition was the ICA Independent Group.-History:...
and reviewing that show, and other works he had seen on a trip to the U.S., in a 1958 article, first used the term "mass popular art".
Career in the U.S.
In 1961 Alloway moved to New York with his wife, realist painter Sylvia SleighSylvia Sleigh
Sylvia Sleigh was a Welsh-born naturalised American realist painter...
. He was appointed senior curator at the Solomon R. 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...
from 1961 until 1966. In 1963 he organized the pop art show, Six Painters and the Object. He chaired the jury awarding the 1964 Guggenheim Awards, one of which was refused by the painter Asger Jorn
Asger Jorn
Asger Oluf Jorn was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International...
.
In 1966 he curated the influential Systemic Painting exhibition that showcased Geometric abstraction in the American art world via Minimal art, Shaped canvas
Shaped canvas
Shaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
, and Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
. Alloway was an ardent supporter of Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and of American Pop artists such as 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...
, Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
, and 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...
. In 1967/68 he joined the Art department faculty as a lecturer at Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Southern Illinois University Carbondale is a public research university located in Carbondale, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1869, SIUC is the flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system...
, where McHale and Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
were also on staff at the SIU Design Department. In the 1970s he wrote for The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
and Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
and lectured at the State University of New York, Stony Brook where he was appointed professor of art history. There he co-founded the magazine Art Criticism with the critic Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit is an American art critic, poet, and Distinguished Professor of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts. Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics. He was formerly the A....
.
In the same year of 1966 Lawrence Alloway coined the term Systemic Art
Systems art
Systems art is art influenced by cybernetics, and systems theory, which reflects on natural systems, social systems and social signs of the art world itself....
, to "describe a type of abstract art characterized by the use of very simple standardized forms, usually geometric in character, either in a single concentrated image or repeated in a system arranged according to a clearly visible principle of organization".
In his own words
Concerning the origins of the term Pop ArtPop 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...
in his own words Alloway said: "The term, originated in England by me, as a description of mass communications, especially, but not exclusively, visual ones."
In a footnote to his essay 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 words, he goes on to say: "The first published appearance of the terms that I know is: Lawrence Alloway, "The Arts and the Mass Media," Architectural Design, February, 1958, London. Ideas on 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...
were discussed by Reyner Banham
Reyner Banham
Peter Reyner Banham was a prolific architectural critic and writer best known for his 1960 theoretical treatise Theory and Design in the First Machine Age and for his 1971 book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies...
, Theo Crosby, Frank Cordell, Toni del Renzio
Toni del Renzio
Antonino Romanov del Renzio dei Rossi di Castellone e Venosa , an artist and writer of Italian and Russian parentage, was leader of the British Surrealist Group for a period....
, Richard Hamilton
Richard Hamilton (artist)
Richard William Hamilton, CH was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the...
, Nigel Henderson, John McHale
John McHale (artist)
John McHale was an artist and sociologist. He was a founder member of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and a founder of the Independent Group, which was a British movement that originated Pop Art which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies...
, Eduardo Paolozzi
Eduardo Paolozzi
Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi, KBE, RA , was a Scottish sculptor and artist. He was a major figure in the international art sphere, while, working on his own interpretation and vision of the world. Paolozzi investigated how we can fit into the modern world to resemble our fragmented civilization...
, Alison and Peter Smithson
Alison and Peter Smithson
English architects Alison Smithson and Peter Smithson together formed an architectural partnership, and are often associated with the New Brutalism .Peter was born in Stockton-on-Tees in north-east England, and Alison was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire...
, sculptor William Turnbull, and myself."
However there are contradictory recollections as to the origin of the term: according to John McHale
John McHale (artist)
John McHale was an artist and sociologist. He was a founder member of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and a founder of the Independent Group, which was a British movement that originated Pop Art which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies...
's son his father first coined the term in 1954 in conversation with Frank Cordell, and the term was then used in Independent Group
Independent Group
The Independent Group met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London from 1952-55. The IG consisted of painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics who wanted to challenge prevailing modernist approaches to culture. They introduced mass culture into debates about high culture,...
discussions by mid 1955. Alloway used the term 'mass popular art' in his oft quoted 1958 article but he did not use the specific term "Pop Art".
External links
- Lawrence Alloway papers, 1935-2003. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. Papers span the critic’s entire career, including his earliest reviews, notes, and writings in 1940s England.