Staniar Gallery Presents 'Modern Art Goes Pop: Selections from W&L's Art Collection'   Lexington, VA (Oct. 26, 2016) - Washington and Lee University’s Staniar Gallery is pleased to present “Modern Art Goes Pop: Selections from W&L's Art Collection.” The show will be on view Nov. 7–Dec. 9. Elliott King, professor of art history at W&L, will deliver a lecture about the work on Nov. 16 at 5:30 p.m. in Wilson Hall's Concert Hall. The lecture will be followed by an opening reception. Both exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. This exhibition showcases two distinct artistic styles that emerged after World War II in Europe and the United States: Hard-edge Abstraction and Pop Art. Like earlier Abstract Expressionists, Hard-edge artists such as Frank Stella removed recognizable subject matter from their work, but also rejected dynamic brushstrokes in favor of mechanical precision, pattern and bold blocks of color. Pop Art developed in the late 1950s when European New Realism, which emphasized elements of mass culture, spread to the U.S. There, artists like Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol found inspiration in the mundane and ordinary—as Warhol said, “all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried not to notice at all.” This exhibition, drawn from W&L’s Collection of Art and History, explores the points at which these two major 20th-century art movements intersected and diverged, as well as their continuing legacies. Staniar Gallery is located on the second floor of Wilson Hall, in Washington and Lee’s Lenfest Center for the Arts. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please call 540-458-8861.

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