Carla Paine

Carla Rae Johnson’s work includes drawing, sculpture, conceptual, performance and installation art. She is a 1990 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Her sculpture has been exhibited in the solo, invitational and curated shows in museums and galleries nationally as well as in New York City and is included in numerous public and private collections. Works by Carla Rae Johnson have been reviewed in The New York Times, The Village Voice, the New Haven Register, The Journal News and the Times Herald-Record. Solo exhibitions of Ms. Johnson’s work in New York City include those at Ceres, SOHO20 Galleries and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. Her work has been featured in museum exhibitions at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, The Loveland Museum, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, The Queens Museum of Art Gallery at Paine Webber, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Heckscher Museum of Art, The Mead Art Museum, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Mississippi Museum of Art and The Meridian Museum of Art. Carla Rae Johnson’s list of selected shows includes exhibitions at Maxwell Fine Arts, Castle Gallery, Artspace, Windows on Greene Street, AIR Gallery, Festival Theatre, Hillwood Art Gallery and The Yale University Art Gallery. In 2002, Carla Rae Johnson was commissioned to design a Cultural Tourism Center for Arts Westchester at the Arts Exchange Building in White Plains, NY. Ms. Johnson’s selected bibliography includes The Aesthetics of Art: Understanding What We See by Liza Renia Papi, published by Cognella, Inc., Made in the U.S.A.: Modern/Contemporary Art in America by Judy Collischan, Abstracts CAA New York City College Art Association Conference in 2003, Who’s Who in American Art since 1992; Lines of Vision: Drawings by Contemporary Women by Judy Collischan and Van Wagner, Editor in 1989, Language as Object: Emily Dickinson and Contemporary Art by Susan Danly, Editor in 1997; A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes, 2nd Edition by Richard Kostelanetz in 2000 and Double Vision: Contemporary Artists Look at the Poetry of Emily Dickinson by Maryanne M. Garbowsky in 2002. In addition to this, Carla Rae Johnson co-authored a textbook on drawing called Draw! with Professor Laurie Steinhorst at Westchester Community College in Valhalla. Directly connected to ideas, Carla Rae Johnson’s art often addresses issues of social, political and cultural import. She finds the most challenging forms and concepts at the intersection of the visual and the verbal and delights in communicating insights with humor, word-play and not just a little irony. She also enjoys working collaboratively with artists and peers. Johnson is a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Sculpture and is a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Drawing.

Perhaps one of the most influential contemporary art movements, Pop art emerged in the 1950s. In stark contrast to traditional artistic practice, its practitioners drew on imagery from popular culture — comic books, advertising, product packaging and other commercial media — to create original Pop art paintings, prints and sculptures that celebrated ordinary life in the most literal way.

ORIGINS OF POP ART

• Started in Britain in the 1950s, flourished in 1960s-era America
• “This is Tomorrow,” at London's Whitechapel Gallery in 1956, was reportedly the first Pop art exhibition
• A reaction to postwar mass consumerism
• Transitioning away from Abstract Expressionism
• Informed by neo-Dada and artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg; influenced postmodernism and Photorealism 

CHARACTERISTICS OF POP ART 

• Bold imagery
• Bright, vivid colors
• Straightforward concepts
• Engagement with popular culture 
• Incorporation of everyday objects from advertisements, cartoons, comic books and other popular mass media

POP ARTISTS TO KNOW

• Richard Hamilton
• Andy Warhol
• Marta Minujín
• Claes Oldenburg
• Eduardo Paolozzi
• Rosalyn Drexler
• James Rosenquist
• Peter Blake
• Roy Lichtenstein

ORIGINAL POP ART ON 1STDIBS

The Pop art movement started in the United Kingdom as a reaction, both positive and critical, to the period’s consumerism. Its goal was to put popular culture on the same level as so-called high culture.

Richard Hamilton’s 1956 collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? is widely believed to have kickstarted this unconventional new style.

Pop art works are distinguished by their bold imagery, bright colors and seemingly commonplace subject matter. Practitioners sought to challenge the status quo, breaking with the perceived elitism of the previously dominant Abstract Expressionism and making statements about current events. Other key characteristics of Pop art include appropriation of imagery and techniques from popular and commercial culture; use of different media and formats; repetition in imagery and iconography; incorporation of mundane objects from advertisements, cartoons and other popular media; hard edges; and ironic and witty treatment of subject matter.

Although British artists launched the movement, they were soon overshadowed by their American counterparts. Pop art is perhaps most closely identified with American Pop artist Andy Warhol, whose clever appropriation of motifs and images helped to transform the artistic style into a lifestyle. Most of the best-known American artists associated with Pop art started in commercial art (Warhol made whimsical drawings as a hobby during his early years as a commercial illustrator), a background that helped them in merging high and popular culture.

Roy Lichtenstein was another prominent Pop artist that was active in the United States. Much like Warhol, Lichtenstein drew his subjects from print media, particularly comic strips, producing paintings and sculptures characterized by primary colors, bold outlines and halftone dots, elements appropriated from commercial printing. Recontextualizing a lowbrow image by importing it into a fine-art context was a trademark of his style. Neo-Pop artists like Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami further blurred the line between art and popular culture.

Pop art rose to prominence largely through the work of a handful of men creating works that were unemotional and distanced — in other words, stereotypically masculine. However, there were many important female Pop artists, such as Rosalyn Drexler, whose significant contributions to the movement are recognized today. Best known for her work as a playwright and novelist, Drexler also created paintings and collages embodying Pop art themes and stylistic features.

Read more about the history of Pop art and the style’s famous artists, and browse the collection of original Pop art paintings, prints, photography and other works for sale on 1stDibs.

Revitalize your interiors — introduce drawings and watercolor paintings to your home to evoke emotions, stir conversation and show off your personality and elevated taste.

Drawing is often considered one of the world’s oldest art forms, with historians pointing to cave art as evidence. In fact, a cave in South Africa, home to Stone Age–era artists, houses artwork that is believed to be around 73,000 years old. It has indeed been argued that cave walls were the canvases for early watercolorists as well as for landscape painters in general, who endeavor to depict and elevate natural scenery through their works of art.

The supplies and methods used by artists and illustrators to create drawings and paintings have evolved over the years, and so too have the intentions. Artists can use their drawing and painting talents to observe and capture a moment, to explore or communicate ideas and convey or evoke emotion. No matter if an artist is working in charcoal or in watercolor and has chosen to portray the marvels of the pure human form, to create realistic depictions of animals in their natural habitats or perhaps to forge a new path that references the long history of abstract visual art, adding a drawing or watercolor painting to your living room or dining room that speaks to you will in turn speak to your guests and conjure stimulating energy in your space.

When you introduce a new piece of art into a common area of your home — a figurative painting by Italian watercolorist Mino Maccari or a colorful still life, such as a detailed botanical work by Deborah Eddy — you’re bringing in textures that can add visual weight to your interior design. You’ll also be creating a much-needed focal point that can instantly guide an eye toward a designated space, particularly in a room that sees a lot of foot traffic.

When you’re shopping for new visual art, whether it’s for your apartment or weekend house, remember to choose something that resonates. It doesn’t always need to make you happy, but you should at least enjoy its energy. On 1stDibs, browse a wide-ranging collection of drawings and watercolor paintings and find out how to arrange wall art when you’re ready to hang your new works.