10 Women of Pop Art You Should Know

In Self-Portrait, Drexler turns the pin-up trope on its head, portraying a blue-skinned, unsettling figure isolated against a red background. The figure’s tense pose and anxious gaze convey confinement within the male gaze. By claiming the image as a self-portrait, Drexler asserts her own sexual agency, challenging the typical objectification of women in Pop Art.

In Marilyn Pursued by Death, the artist presents Marilyn Monroe fleeing from the paparazzi, set against a black background outlined in red to suggest danger. Unlike her male counterparts, who celebrated Monroe as a glamorous sex symbol, Drexler emphasizes the darker realities of media obsession and public scrutiny. Marilyn becomes a symbol of victimization, reflecting Drexler’s underlying feminist critique.

In Self-Defense, Drexler portrays a woman in a moment of decisive strength, holding a gun while pinning down her attacker and clawing his face. Contrary to her other works that highlight vulnerability, this painting presents the woman  active rather than objectified. Through this dramatic depiction, Drexler explores themes of self-protection, empowerment, and resistance, reinforcing her feminist perspective within the Pop Art framework.

In Marisol’s wood construction LBJ, President Lyndon B. Johnson is depicted holding small portraits of his wife and daughters, rendered as smiling gray house wrens—a nod to Lady Bird Johnson. In stark contrast, Marisol portrays LBJ himself as a grimacing, blocklike figure with exaggerated facial features, evoking both the circumstances of his rise to the presidency and his controversial role in the Vietnam War. Created at the height of his unpopularity, the sculpture combines satire with social commentary, highlighting Johnson’s domineering personality and the public tensions surrounding his leadership.

Marisol’s close relationship with Andy Warhol informed her playful yet critical perspective in the sculpture Andy. Drawing on her experiences at The Factory and her familiarity with Warhol’s persona, she rendered him in a simplified, almost caricatured style, blending admiration with subtle satire. By translating Warhol’s distinctive features into a sculptural form, Marisol captured both his celebrity aura and the performative nature of his public image.

Mi Mamá y Yo reflects the lasting impact of the artist’s mother’s suicide, which left her fearing her own voice. The wooden figures convey both intimacy and emotional tension, transforming personal grief into a universal exploration of family, loss, and identity. Through this work, Marisol channels trauma into a poignant statement within Pop Art.

The painting is a tribute to Marilyn Monroe, painted shortly after her death. It combines vibrant colors and floral motifs to humanize the actress beyond her public image. The title references a popular song of the era, emphasizing both mourning and cultural memory, while Boty’s ironic yet affectionate style critiques media-driven ideals of femininity.

BUM captures the playful and provocative energy of 1960s youth culture. The painting features a close-up of a female figure’s posterior, rendered in bright colors and outlined with clear lines, highlighting both humor and sexuality. Through this exaggerated depiction, Boty critiques the male gaze while simultaneously celebrating female confidence and bodily autonomy.

This vivid collage presents male figures, such as Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley, and Albert Einstein, juxtaposed with symbols of power, war, and celebrity. Boty subtly inserts a female element through a red rose atop Jackie Kennedy, highlighting the tension between masculine dominance and female presence. With bold colors and sharp imagery, the artist critiques the cultural and social structures that elevate men while limiting women, turning the title into a pointed, ironic commentary on the male-centered world of the 1960s.

Here, Kent blends bold typography and vibrant color to deliver a message of compassion and caution. Words and phrases are layered across the composition, creating both visual rhythm and a sense of urgency, while the playful palette draws the viewer in. By combining text, color, and pop culture references, Kent transforms a simple directive into a universal call for empathy, reflecting her belief in art as a tool for social engagement.

Corita Kent’s Tiger is a screenprint that transforms a popular advertising slogan into vibrant visual art. Using bold typography and dynamic composition, Kent repurposes the phrase Put a tiger in your tank to explore the energy of language and commercial culture.

Corita Kent’s I Am the People layers bold text over vibrant, graphic forms to emphasize the strength and influence of ordinary people. Using her signature Pop Art style, Kent transforms language into visual power, highlighting themes of collective action, community, and shared responsibility.

Axell’s painting shows a woman confidently enjoying an ice cream cone, painted in bold, flat colors. The painter challenges traditional depictions of women, reflecting the exploration of female subjectivity by the women of Pop Art. The work’s provocative imagery sparked debate, emphasizing its playful critique of desire and cultural norms.

This piece uses collage and painting to rework imagery taken from the popular fashion magazine of the same name. By isolating and recontextualizing the female figure, Axell exposes how mass media constructs ideals of beauty and femininity. The bold colors and simplified forms assert control over the image, shifting it away from passive consumption.

In Le retour de Tarzan, Axell appropriates the iconic male hero to reverse traditional power dynamics. She places a nude female figure at the center of the composition, presenting desire from a female perspective rather than through the male gaze. Using bright colors and smooth, stylized forms, Axell blends eroticism with irony, challenging heroic masculinity and pop stereotypes.

In Outer Space, Kogelnik depicts a stylized female figure floating against a flat, cosmic background, merging the space-race imagery of the era with Pop Art aesthetics. The simplified body, bright colors, and weightless pose reflect her interest in technology, futurism, and the changing role of women in modern society. Rather than presenting space as a heroic male domain, Kogelnik inserts a distinctly female presence into this futuristic vision.

In this piece, the artist directly engages with the feminist movement through bold color, simplified forms, and graphic clarity. The work presents a female figure as emblematic rather than individual, emphasizing collective identity and political presence. By reducing the body to a striking visual symbol, Kogelnik avoids idealization and instead foregrounds autonomy and resistance.

In War Baby, Kogelnik confronts the violence of the Vietnam War by combining imagery of infancy with military symbolism. The work presents a childlike figure marked by elements associated with warfare, creating a stark contrast between innocence and destruction. Through simplified forms and bold color, Kogelnik exposes the absurdity and cruelty of conflict, especially its impact on future generations. The piece shows how the women of Pop Art used Pop’s visual language not only to reflect popular culture, but also to critique political violence and global unrest.

Yayoi Kusama’s Phalli’s Field is an early Pop Art installation featuring hundreds of soft, phallus-shaped forms arranged across the gallery floor. Using repetition and bright color, Kusama transforms erotic and personal imagery into a visual pattern that immerses the viewer. The work critiques gender, desire, and social norms while reflecting her signature use of obsessive repetition, positioning the female perspective within the male-dominated Pop Art scene.

Accumulation No. 1 (1962) is a soft sculpture in which a chair is covered with protruding, phallic fabric forms. By transforming a domestic object into a provocative artwork, Kusama merges everyday life with erotic imagery, reflecting her Pop Art interest in repetition and mass-produced forms. The work challenges conventional ideas of gender and sexuality, asserting a distinctly female perspective within the male-dominated art world of the 1960s.

Yayoi Kusama’s Yellow Pumpkin (c. 1994, building on her 1960s Pop Art motifs) features her signature polka-dotted pumpkin, rendered in bright yellow with black spots. The simple, repetitive pattern transforms an ordinary vegetable into a bold, playful icon, reflecting her fascination with pattern, repetition, and pop imagery. The work merges humor, visual rhythm, and a sense of infinity, demonstrating how Kusama reclaims everyday forms as immersive, symbolic art within the context of Pop Art.

Minujín’s Untitled from the Frozen Sex series (1974–1975) presents a zoomed-in depiction of the female reproductive part, rendered with bold, exaggerated forms and bright colors. The work confronts viewers with themes of sexuality, bodily autonomy, and female subjectivity, challenging traditional taboos around the female body. By magnifying intimate anatomy, Minujín transforms private forms into public, visually striking statements, reflecting how the women of Pop Art used erotic imagery to assert agency and critique societal norms.

Mattress is a vibrant, handmade futon, stitched and painted in striking neon hues. By transforming an ordinary mattress into art, she invites viewers to connect with its texture and imagine the tactile experience. Beginning in 1961 during her time in Paris, Minujín collected discarded mattresses from hospitals and dumps, turning them into expressive, colorful pieces. For her, mattresses embody the rhythms of daily life and human experience.

The Parthenon of Books is a monumental installation that recreates the Greek Parthenon entirely from banned and censored books. First realized in 1983 in Buenos Aires and recreated internationally in 2017, the work celebrates freedom of expression while confronting censorship and authoritarian control. By transforming books into architectural form, Minujín elevates literature into a participatory, visual spectacle, inviting viewers to reflect on the power of ideas and the importance of access to knowledge. The piece exemplifies her Pop Art-inspired approach, blending scale, color, and social commentary into an immersive experience.

In Girl with Rose, the painter presents a female figure whose exaggerated lips and sculpted breasts protrude from the canvas. By pushing painted features into three-dimensional space, Strider blurs the boundary between painting and sculpture. The work mimics advertising imagery, yet its physical excess exposes how popular culture reduces women to eroticized fragments. Through this confrontation, Strider critiques the visual language of Pop Art from within, asserting a distinctly female perspective.

In Green Triptych, the artist divides the female figure across three panels, encouraging a slow, comparative way of looking. The raised, molded forms disrupt the flatness of the canvas, creating a tension between image and object. Rather than presenting a single idealized body, the triptych format fractures and multiplies the figure, emphasizing construction over seduction.

In Nestlé’s Box, Strider alters a familiar Nestlé package by adding a blue, cloud-like form that spills out of the box. The soft shape contrasts with the box’s rigid structure and printed branding. Rather than depicting a figure, the work focuses on material and form, disrupting the neat appearance of a consumer product. Through this contrast, Strider draws attention to the tension between mass-produced packaging and physical presence.

The Advertising Icon turns the visual style of commercial signage into a sculptural artwork. Created for an advertising agency in Sydney, it uses bold colors and clear, graphic forms reminiscent of branded media. By transforming a familiar visual language into art, Canneel explores the intersection of everyday commercial imagery and Pop Art aesthetics, highlighting how ordinary materials and signs can become expressive objects.

This piece is a small mixed‑media work that takes the shape of an egg as its primary form. It uses this simple, organic shape to contrast with the industrial materials Canneel often explored earlier in her career, reflecting her evolving interest in naturalistic forms and visual symbolism.

Canneel’s Demain sera meilleur is a bright, interactive sculpture that combines neon lights, a toy-like rainbow, and cheerful colors. Viewers activate the piece by inserting a token, which turns on the illuminated phrase Demain sera meilleur (Tomorrow Will Be Better). While it appears playful and optimistic, the work subtly links hope to an act of participation, questioning the way consumer culture mediates expectations and desire.