Chris Makos

Christopher Makos, born in 1948, is an American photographer and artist. He spent his adolescence in California and as a young adult, moved to Paris, France, to study architecture. After extensive traveling throughout Europe, Makos became the apprentice of Man Ray, a photographer and close friend of Marcel Duchamp. During the great artist's last birthday celebrations in Italy, the master Surrealist Man Ray took a special interest in Makos and shared many practical insights into his working method as a photographer.

In 1977, Makos burst onto the photography scene with his book, White Trash. This raw, beautiful chronicle of the downtown NYC punk scene, interspersed with portraits of Uptown Boldface names, became a turning point for his career as a photographic journalist. Makos became close friends and collaborated extensively with Andy Warhol, whom he showed how to use his first camera. Warhol dubbed Makos the "most modern photographer in America" and his book, Warhol: A Photographic Memoir, details his extensive travels and friendship with the Pop art superstar. Later, Makos introduced Warhol to the work of both Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, connecting the major players of the contemporary art world.

Makos continued to document the New York scene throughout the 1980s using his Interview Magazine "IN" column to present up and coming stars such as Matt Dillon, Christian Slater, Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Ford. Makos then began his long-term love affair with Spain, where he continues to be a regular in Madrid. His portraits of Pedro Almodovar, Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, Bibi Andersen and Miguel Bose helped identify La Movida. Makos has developed his distinctive photographic style to take legendary photographs of the world’s most famous icons, including portraits of Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Taylor, Salvador Dalí, John Lennon, Tennessee Williams and Mick Jagger. Makos's work has been in the permanent collections of more than 100 museums and major private collections, including those of Malcolm Forbes, Pedro Almodóvar and Gianni Versace.

Christopher Makos’s photos have been the subject of numerous exhibitions both in galleries and museums throughout the United States, Europe and Japan and have appeared in countless magazines and newspapers worldwide. His work has been published in Interview, Rolling Stone, House & Garden, Connoisseur, New York magazine, Esquire, Genre and People, among many others. The beloved portrait of Warhol wrapped in a flag was featured on the front cover of the Spring 1990 issue of the Smithsonian Studies.

Makos’s projects include a book of his SX 70 Polaroids, with an essay by his friend Calvin Klein. Lady Warhol, published in 2010, presents 120 portraits of Andy in various wigs and make-up guises from the 1981 two-day Makos shoot they conceived as an homage to Man Ray's Rrose Sélavy collaboration.

Christopher Makos has truly become a seminal figure in the contemporary art scene in New York — find a collection of his photography today on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by Arton Contemporary)

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.