Icons of the Pop Art Age
By Siobhan Morrissey
Like a perfect haiku, the Pop Art exhibit at the Margulies Collection says a lot with so little. The Japanese poetry style conveys abundant meaning in just 17 syllables. Similarly, collection founder Martin Z. Margulies uses just 17 works — if you view the three images of “The American Indian” by Andy Warhol as a triptych instead of individually — to chronicle the history of Pop Art.
Few collections outside of the Museum of Modern Art or the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York can offer anything remotely similar. The majority of the works in the show were created in the 1960s, when the movement first emerged, and includes seminal works by the pillars of pop. On display through Dec. 10, the show features work by Warhol, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, James Rosenquist and Tom Wesselmann.
“What makes Pop so important is this is really the first purely American art movement,” Margulies said. “The Pop Art movement was a purely American movement about American culture.” “This year, because of the magnitude of what we’ve done,” Margulies said, “it’s the best show that we’ve ever done.” The exhibit features all works from his private collection installed in his Key Biscayne home.