Pop art history: from Warhol to now

I make pop art for a living, so I'm legally required to love Andy Warhol. (I'm not, but I do.) Here's the story of pop art in the time it takes to drink a coffee, and why it's still everywhere, including on my stall in Covent Garden.

It started in London, actually

Everyone thinks pop art is American. It isn't, originally. In the 1950s a group of artists and writers in London called the Independent Group started taking popular culture seriously: adverts, comics, film, packaging, American magazines. In 1956, Richard Hamilton made a small collage with a ridiculously long title, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, full of bodybuilders, tinned ham and a lollipop with the word POP on it. It's often called the first pop art work.

Eduardo Paolozzi was cutting up magazines and making collages from adverts even earlier. Britain had pop art before it had central heating.

Then America turned it up

In the early 1960s, pop art went big in New York.

• Andy Warhol painted Campbell's Soup Cans (1962), 32 canvases of soup, and silkscreened Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and Coca-Cola bottles. His big idea: the things everyone sees every day are worth art. He also made the art itself look mass-produced, on purpose.
• Roy Lichtenstein blew up comic-book panels into huge paintings, complete with dots and speech bubbles. His Whaam! (1963) hangs at Tate Modern.
• Claes Oldenburg made giant soft sculptures of hamburgers, toilets and lipsticks.
• Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg opened the door just before, with flags, targets and everyday objects in art.

The art world was horrified. The public loved it. That's usually a good sign.

Meanwhile, back in Britain

Peter Blake co-designed the cover for The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), one of the most famous pieces of pop art ever made, and you can buy it on vinyl. Pauline Boty was one of the few women in early British pop, painting film stars and politics with real wit. A young David Hockney was part of the scene too.

Words become the art

This is the bit I care about. Pop art loved words: brand names, speech bubbles, adverts. Later artists made the words the whole point.

• Ed Ruscha painted single words and phrases in huge, glossy letters from the 1960s onwards.
• Barbara Kruger put bold slogans over black-and-white photos in the 1980s.
• Jenny Holzer turned one-line statements, her Truisms, into posters, LED signs and benches.
• Tracey Emin wrote messages in neon, which is basically the most London thing ever.

When I paint "Please Don't Do Cocaine in the Bathroom" in big black letters over bright colour, I'm a very distant, very cheeky cousin of all of them.

The 1980s: street, graffiti and Basquiat

Keith Haring drew in chalk on empty advertising boards in the New York subway, then opened the Pop Shop to sell affordable art to everyone. Jean-Michel Basquiat mixed words, crossings-out, crowns and raw colour, and is one of the artists who inspires my own work. Pop art left the gallery and went back to the street, where it started.

Pop art now

Today pop art is everywhere: fashion collaborations, street art, slogan T-shirts, Instagram. Banksy uses pop art tricks to make political jokes. Takashi Murakami blends anime and luxury brands. And on market stalls and Instagram feeds all over the world, independent artists are making slogan art about modern life: brands, parties, therapy, champagne and bad decisions.

Why pop art still works

1. It's instant. You get it in a second.
2. It's funny. Or at least cheeky. Art doesn't have to be serious to be good.
3. It's about real life. Shopping, celebrities, brands, nights out.
4. It's for everyone. Warhol wanted art that felt as common as a can of soup. Prints keep that spirit alive.

How my work fits in

I hand-paint slogans onto antique book pages, so every piece mixes something old (the paper, sometimes a whole antique portrait) with something very now (the joke). I'm inspired by music, films and fashion, which is why you'll see Chanel, Louis Vuitton and champagne all over my stall. It's pop art: the everyday, turned up loud. Read more about the paper in antique book page art.

Pop art questions