ABSTRACT
There is a kind of folk image of British art in the 1960s, fostered by colour supplements then and fading memories since, in which a new generation of artists rejected the abstract expressionism, symbolic landscape and aristocratic portraiture of the 1940s and 1950s, and turned instead to imagery that was genuinely popular, free from establishment cant, and closer to American than European models. In this reading, Pop Art reached its climax in Peter Blake’s sleeve design for a Beatles’ LP,1 and Op Art found completion when Bridget Riley’s black and white rhythms were hijacked from the gallery by chainstore dress-designers. Art was at last owned by the people-or, at least, the younger people; firmly allied to popular values, it was to play its part in the new socialist state.
