Rosenquist, James Albert (1933-2017), was an American painter who came to prominence as a member of the Pop Art movement in the 1960’s. Rosenquist’s works combine realistically painted, magnified fragments of everyday objects and images. He used extremely large canvases, bright colors, and a painting style that resembles billboard and outdoor sign art. He often attached actual objects to his canvases. Rosenquist’s placement and recombination of seemingly unrelated items make his works seem somewhat surrealistic, but the title of each painting helps to bring the message into focus.
Rosenquist’s most famous painting, The F-111 (1965), is 86 feet (26.2 meters) long. It includes images of a fighter plane, a little girl under a hairdryer, a light bulb, a mass of spaghetti, an umbrella, and an atomic explosion. The title refers to an American fighter-bomber used in the Vietnam War (1957-1975). It is an indictment of American society of the time, particularly attacking consumer habits and war.
Rosenquist was born on Nov. 29, 1933, in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He supported himself painting billboards both before and after moving to New York City in 1955. Rosenquist wrote an autobiography, Painting Below Zero: Notes on a Life in Art (2009). He died on March 31, 2017.
