James Rosenquist

Leading Pop artist James Rosenquist—who came to prominence among New York School figures like Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Willem de Kooning—is well known for his large-scale, fragmented works that bring the visual language of commercial painting onto canvas (notably, from 1957-60, Rosenquist earned his living as a billboard painter). In his use of mass-produced goods and vernacular culture rendered in an anonymous style, Rosenquist's work recalls that of Andy Warhol, while his seemingly irrational, mysterious pictorial combinations owe a debt to Surrealism. His breakthrough work, the iconic F-111 (1965)—51 panels that total over 22 by 24 feet—juxtaposes an American fighter plane with a Firestone tire, garish orange tinned spaghetti, and a young girl under a hair dryer.