Mickey Mouse from Pop Art to Present

Concept of Pop Art

The concept of Pop Art has been very influential and inspiring to a variety of artists in this generation. Pop Art, which is short for “popular art”, is a type of art that can primarily feature artwork relating back to common household materials and materials we would see on TV, such as newspapers, magazines, comic books, movies, and advertisements, as well as also relating to the concept of consumer products such as Campbell Soup Cans. Within the years of 1950-1960, in England, Pop Art began to spread rapidly throughout the art industry.

It was around that time period when artists were starting to realize that the world was completely getting taken over by technology and social changes in the environment. Over the course of the years, Pop Art has grown to become one of the biggest and well- known movements in the art industry as a whole and artists worldwide are greatly influenced by this idea as well.

Mickey Mouse’s Character

One of the most well-known characters worldwide and loved by many is Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse was a cartoon character created by Walt Disney in the year 1928. He is known for wearing his classic outfit which consists of red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves. He is easily one of the most recognizable cartoon characters, due to his contagious laugh and cheerful face, and has appeared in many TV shows and in comics for many years, as well his trademark locations is Disneyland and Disneyworld.

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Mickey Mouse has always been an inspirational and educational icon to many young children, teaching them lessons behind a TV screen that are fun and enjoyable as a whole. Aside from young children, however, Mickey Mouse has been widely used across the world by many popular artists and recreated in different ways to make unique forms of Pop Art that catches people’s attention in various ways.

Mickey Mouse and Andy Warhol

When it comes to creating Pop Art, many popular artists have gone above and beyond to do so. Mickey Mouse is a highly known figure in the Pop Art world and artists, such as Andy Warhol, have recreated this character in ways we may have never seen before. Andy Warhol was born on August 6th 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was an American filmmaker and artist who was a great leading factor of the Pop Art movement in the 1960s. His artworks reflect on the idea of celebrity culture and advertising, which included paintings, silkscreening, photography, and sculpture. After graduating college, Warhol moved to New York City in hopes to fulfilling his hopes and dreams and to become successful. In the 1960’s, he began to paint everyday objects such as Coke bottles and Campbells soup cans as a start, which later lead to his name being commonly known throughout the city. Aside from his usage of everyday items, he was also intrigued with the concept of animations. Mickey Mouse to Warhol was the perfect character in which to recreate in terms of Pop Art, due to the fact that the cartoon character is famous worldwide and viewers would enjoy seeing an artist put a twist on his appearance. In 1981, Warhol created a piece called “Mickey Mouse: Diamond Dust”, a screen print that was measured to be 38×38 inches. This specific artwork of Mickey Mouse was part of Warhol’s Myths portfolio, which also includes images such as Superman, Dracula, and Hoody Doody. A great deal of Warhol’s screen prints were based off of animations from famous Hollywood movies and TV shows from the 1950’s and the 1960’s, however he primarily puts Mickey Mouse on a higher pedestal than the rest because he stands out tremendously out of the rest. In “Mickey Mouse; Diamond Dusk”, it shows Mickey Mouse but not in the way we are used to seeing him. In this piece, it shows Mickey Mouse without color, only black and white, with the only color to the artwork being his red tongue and the singular lines around his large ears having a tinted pink and orange color to them. The background is pitch black, along with his eyes being completely dark with no pupils. When people view this piece, they see an older version of Mickey Mouse, not present-day Mickey Mouse. This is a very unique approach to an original cartoon to give it a sense of value regarding the idea of time. In addition to the singular Mickey Mouse print, Warhol later created Double Mickey Mouse FS II.269 in the same year, a piece based off of singular Mickey Mouse also included in Warhol’s Myths portfolio. This is a screen print on Arches 88 paper, and measures to be 30 1/2”X43”, and shows Warhol’s original screen print of Mickey Mouse, but duplicated and with more color to the face, background, and shorts. What makes this piece different from the singular Mickey Mouse is that “it becomes more of a pattern than a development of movement” (Werbin). Mickey Mouse has been a known figure since 1928 and the concept of Andy Warhol recreating the newer versions of Mickey to the past version with slight reconstructions and different mechanisms shows what a wide difference he can make in the Pop Art world.

Art of Jeff Koons

In addition to Andy Warhol’s work and reconstruction of the cartoon character Mickey Mouse, artist Jeff Koons had the same idea, but a different approach. Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania in 1955 and did a lot of his studying at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. His work has dealt with the idea of small toys and everyday commonly used objects and has evolved that work into larger monumental works exhibited worldwide. Koons states, “I like to think that when you leave the room, the art leaves the room. Art is about your own possibilities as a human being. It’s about your own excitement, your own potential, and what you can become. It affirms your existence”. What is interesting about Koons is that when it comes to the idea of Pop Art, he tends to draw a significant amount of attention to images that people are familiar with as they pass through time and can be interpreted in different ways. Mickey Mouse, as we know, has the reputation and looks that we all know and love. In his piece called “Mickey Mouse Skull”, it shows a sculpture of a golden skull with Mickey Mouse’s famous large ears and a princess tiara on top of its head. One of the many reasons why this piece stands out over the many displays of Mickey Mouse is because viewers are used to seeing Mickey Mouse more as a 2D figure verses a 3D figure, and because this piece is a 3D sculpture, it stands out over something created on paper. Relating back to Koon’s tactic of focusing viewers’ attention on the concept of time, he adds Mickey Mouse’s ears to the skull to show the internal view of what people don’t see when they look at the cartoon character and puts a twist on the image of him as well. In my own perspective, this was a very unique approach in terms of Pop Art and time combined. It is different, yet stands out over the rest.

Artist Keith Haring

Artist Keith Haring also had a great impact in the Pop Art world and had similarities with Andy Warhol when it came to Mickey Mouse. Haring was born on May 4th, 1958 in Reading Pennsylvania, and had a passion for drawing, especially cartoon characters. At a very young age, learning from his father, his love for drawing started out with classic icons such as Dr Seuss and Walt Disney characters. Mickey Mouse was always a cartoon character that was very close to Haring’s heart and stated was “ultimately a symbol of America more than anything else” (Cole). One of Haring’s signature pieces was Mickey Mouse, 1981-1981, which was simply acrylic on paper and measured 127×193 cm. When viewers look at this piece, it doesn’t look like the Mickey Mouse that the world knows and loves. It is only black and white, however what makes this artwork unique is the different designs Haring used to create this. Mickey Mouse still has the large ears and is still wearing his gloves, but his facial structural around his eyes, nose, and mouth are surrounded by hundreds of dots. The background consists of a series of squiggly lines, which was a huge aspect to the piece in order to make it pop out completely. Older Mickey Mouse most definitely comes out in this piece opposed to the newer animated versions of him, and the black and white scenery and facial structure of the character make that known immensely. Haring used the concept of lines and light dots around the idea of the cartoon character to make it stand out and to create an image of Mickey Mouse that viewers are not used to seeing.

Artist Takashi Murakami

Lastly, one of the most famous contemporary artists in the world of Pop Art is Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. He was born on February 1st, 1962, and throughout the years has grown to be a tremendous name to many. Murakami dedicates a lot of his inspiration to his parents, who have helped him and influenced him to have a passion for art. His father was a taxi cab driver, while his mother was a homemaker. His mother had a passion for studying designed textiles and needlepoint, which influenced Murakami the most. His passion for creating artwork began at a young age, watching his mother work with specific designs and colors as a whole, later leading to his parents having him write reviews on popular exhibitions he had seen around him. Over the years, Murakami has combined Japanese pop culture referents with the country’s artistic legacy in one to become successful in every aspect of the Pop Art world. He is known for also for making happy, bubbly anime characters that the Japanese people know and love, and those characters have expanded into the United States for us to enjoy as well. Later in his career, he began to be widely known as the Japanese Andy Warhol and reached a higher, newer level of success as an artist and as an entrepreneur. Known for his artistic ability to make art scenery pop with a wide variety of colors, Murakami began to create a version of Mickey Mouse that was interesting, yet partially frightening in the same way. Japanese Pop Art can be different in its own unique way, especially when recreating cartoon characters and sometimes even human beings, and primarily appearing to look like anime characters. When it comes to Murakami creating Mickey Mouse, Murakami created his piece This World and the World Beyond in 2013. It was created with an array of colors and offset lithograph with cold foil stamp and high gloss varnishing on UV paper and is measured to be 68×68 cm. This piece most definitely maintains Murakami’s visual strategy, showing images of cartoon characters and illustrations that look like a whimsical version of Mickey Mouse. The large ears of the mouse appear once again on all the images provided, and the color scheme that the artist uses makes the piece much more whimsical and focused on the idea of Japanese anime. “This linked dichotomy, in particular, is especially resonant within Murakami’s oeuvre, as he explores puerile fascinations alongside art historical themes and explorations of contemporary consumer practices” (Gopnik). In Murakami’s perspective, this piece was very fun and unique to portray, using visual representations and aspects of the cartoon character with a twist of a variety of different colors and frightening faces to make it stand out over pieces created before.

The concept of Mickey Mouse and how much of a well-known figure he is worldwide sparked many artists imagination and inspired them to recreate him in their own unique ways as a whole. As stated before, the Pop Art industry has grown rapidly since the 1950s-1960s and a variety of artists today have expanded their knowledge and inspiration and put it fourth creating pieces consisting of cartoon characters and illustrations. Mickey Mouse today is still an icon to many, and most likely, artists in the future will fulfill their passion in the Pop Art world and hopefully will keep the trend of Mickey Mouse strong, creating pieces that not only stand out to the public, but stand out to themselves in their own special, unique ways.