Rosenquist Painted Big

Rosenquist was considered an abstract painter, but not in the sense that we’ve been studying thus far. Early in his career, abstraction emerged as a sense of detachment, specifically the detachment that occurs in forgetting. Examples of his identity obscuring can be seen in Marilyn Monroe I and President Elect. Rosenquist believed that this process made his work both nonobjective and abstract, even though we was using imagery that was directly representational.

Rosenquist was born in 1933 in the Midwest, and grew up there most of his life. When he was a teenager, he was awarded a scholarship to study art at the Minneapolis School of Art at the Minneapolis Art Institute. From there he went on to the University of Minnesota, and received another scholarship to the Art Students League in New York.

Rosenquist soon became bored with his classes, since he already had the technical capabilities. He began work painting billboards for the next three years in Times Square and other areas of the city. This heavily influenced his work. Rosenquist had always believed he had an All-American background growing up, and this exposure to pop culture and the American economy runs through his body of work. It also allowed him to be comfortable working on such a large scale, generating some paintings that are over 86 feet long. (See F-111).

Rosenquist’s paintings have been seen as social and political commentaries. The President Elect was painted when John Kennedy was running against Eisenhower—Rosenquist wanted to ask what Kennedy was offering the American public, juxtaposing his next to “middle class” imagery. F-111 is often seen as an anti-war painting. Joan Collins Says is inspired by a personal encounter between the artist and the actress—she had promised a group of artist’s a show sponsored by Pepsi, and never followed through on it.

During the late sixties and early seventies, Rosenquist began creating full room installations deemed by some critics as “wrap around paintings”. He wanted to emphasize the mass of pop cultural images and advertisements we are bombarded with everyday. He also has an interest in sculptures, which he occasionally incorporates into his paintings, and is said to be a skilled printmaker as well.

In the 1980’s, Rosenquist transitioned into “crosshatched” paintings, which he saw as a more “collision-like” juxtaposition of images that his previous work. Partially inspired by Duchamp and Fontana, who literally slashed their canvases, Rosenquist believed that this effect would similarly give the illusion of a three dimensional space.

James Rosenquist’s career began in the age of abstraction and transitioned into the pop art movement. Even today, Rosenquist continues to create large scale paintings with cultural references in both advertising and the art world.