SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) presents Pop! From San Francisco Collections, on view from March 6 through September 12, 2004. Drawn from local private collections with additional works from SFMOMA’s own collection, the exhibition will feature nearly 100 paintings, sculptures and works on paper that together demonstrate the wealth of extraordinary holdings of quintessential works of Pop art in the Bay Area. Organized jointly by SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra and Curator of Painting and Sculpture Janet Bishop, this exhibition will focus on the influence of mass culture and the development of Pop art in America between 1955 and 1980. 

The exhibition will be installed thematically, presenting works by key figures associated with Pop in New York, a moment in art history that peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, with works by Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and others. The exhibition will also demonstrate the range and depth of the movement by looking at Pop works by artists active in California such as Ed Ruscha, Mel Ramos, Wayne Thiebaud and Robert Arneson. 

Among the themes addressed by the exhibition are: American icons (Flag, 1958 by Jasper Johns, George Washington, 1962 by Roy Lichtenstein), language (Johns’s 0 through 9, 1960), celebrity (Fig. 4 -- Few And Far…, 1965 by Jess, Andy Warhol’s Triple Elvis, 1962), comics (Dr. Midnight, 1962 by Mel Ramos, Good Morning Darling, 1964 by Roy Lichtenstein), the dark side of Pop (Warhol’s Most Wanted Men series, 1964), everyday objects and food (Wayne Thiebaud’s Display Cakes, 1963). There will also be an entire room focusing on the work of Ed Ruscha, including his gunpowder drawings and artist books.