Bold examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 core examples (and more)

When people ask for examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples always show up first: Andy Warhol’s soup cans and Marilyns, Roy Lichtenstein’s comic panels, and Richard Hamilton’s collage of postwar consumer life. They’re like the Holy Trinity of pop references.

Let’s start with those three, then build outward into more recent examples, including street art, fashion, and digital work.

Example 1: Andy Warhol – from soup cans to Marilyn Monroe

If you want a textbook example of cultural references in pop art, Andy Warhol is that textbook.

His “Campbell’s Soup Cans” (1962) takes a supermarket object and treats it like a Renaissance altarpiece. Each canvas shows a different flavor of Campbell’s soup, repeated in a grid. It’s a direct cultural reference: no symbolism, no disguise, just the logo you’d see in your kitchen cabinet, blown up and turned into art.

Warhol is basically asking: If advertising images dominate our lives, why can’t they dominate our museums too?

Another of the best examples is his “Marilyn Diptych” (1962). Warhol used a publicity photo of Marilyn Monroe from the film Niagara, screen-printed it 50 times, and bathed it in neon colors on one side and fading black-and-white on the other. This is celebrity culture turned into a repeating pattern, like wallpaper for the age of fame.

Here, the cultural references are stacked:

• Hollywood glamour
• Mass-produced publicity stills
• The public’s obsessive consumption of a tragic star

If you’re teaching or studying pop art, Warhol’s Marilyn is one of the strongest real examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples could easily all be his.

Example 2: Roy Lichtenstein – comics blown up to billboard size

Roy Lichtenstein took low-cost comic book panels and transformed them into giant, high-art canvases. If Warhol loved the supermarket, Lichtenstein loved the drugstore comics rack.

Works like “Whaam!” (1963) and “Drowning Girl” (1963) are direct cultural references to mid-century American comic books. He mimicked:

• Ben-Day dots used in cheap printing
• Speech bubbles
• Melodramatic dialogue like “I don’t care! I’d rather sink than call Brad for help!”

These paintings are not vague homages. They’re almost frame-by-frame remixes of specific comic panels, scaled up to the size of a mural. That’s why they’re often listed among the best examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples you absolutely need to know.

By lifting comics into the museum, Lichtenstein forced critics to confront a big question: Why is a mythological painting “serious,” but a comic about fighter jets or heartbreak is “trash”? His answer was to treat both with the same formal care—composition, color, line—while still letting the pop culture reference stay obvious and loud.

Example 3: Richard Hamilton – the collage that predicted Instagram

Before pop art had a name, British artist Richard Hamilton dropped a bomb with his 1956 collage:

“Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?”

The piece is a living room constructed from cut-out magazine images: bodybuilder with a lollipop, pin-up girl on a sofa, canned ham, vacuum cleaner, TV, tape recorder, a giant comic-style “POP” sign. It’s like someone ripped a mid-century ad agency’s filing cabinet into pieces and reassembled it into one chaotic domestic fantasy.

This collage is a perfect example of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples often start with this one because it packs in so many icons of 1950s consumer culture:

• Idealized bodies
• Household appliances
• Processed food
• Mass media screens

Hamilton even wrote a short definition of pop art that reads like a mood board for the whole movement: “Popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced…” You can find that quote and more context in the Tate’s overview of Pop Art (a solid reference if you’re digging deeper into the style).

Beyond the big three: more examples of cultural references in pop art

Those three classics are the foundation, but they’re not the whole story. If you want examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples is just the starting playlist. Let’s expand the album.

Pop art and brand worship: logos as modern heraldry

One of the clearest examples include artworks that treat brand logos like medieval coats of arms.

Think of:

• Warhol’s Coca-Cola bottles – taking the Coke logo and repeating it until it becomes almost hypnotic
• James Rosenquist’s “I Love You with My Ford” (1961) – mashing together a Ford car, a spaghetti ad, and a woman’s lips into a billboard-style painting

In both cases, the artists aren’t inventing imagery. They’re sampling it from advertising and packaging, the way a producer samples a hook from a pop song. These are perfect real examples of how pop art uses cultural references to talk about consumerism, desire, and the way products start to feel like part of our identity.

For context on how advertising and consumer culture boomed in the mid-20th century—the soil pop art grew from—check out the Smithsonian’s resources on postwar consumer culture from the National Museum of American History.

Pop art and celebrity culture: from Elvis to Beyoncé-era echoes

Pop art has always had a celebrity crush. Warhol alone gave us:

• “Elvis I & II” – multiple images of Elvis Presley in a cowboy outfit, like a film strip caught mid-action
• “Liz” – Elizabeth Taylor’s face, painted in lush colors at the height of her fame and scandal

These are some of the best examples of cultural references in pop art because they show how pop artists didn’t just depict celebrities—they dissected the machinery that turned people into icons.

Fast forward, and contemporary artists keep using this formula:

• KAWS reworks cartoon and pop culture characters (think Mickey Mouse vibes with X-ed out eyes) into sculptures and paintings, referencing mass media characters without always naming them directly.
• Takashi Murakami (often called a “superflat” artist, but heavily pop-influenced) collaborates with musicians like Kanye West and brands like Louis Vuitton, mixing anime aesthetics, luxury logos, and celebrity branding into one visual universe.

These more recent artists show that the examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples from the 1960s now echo in collaborations, merch drops, and album covers.

Digital-age pop: memes, NFTs, and internet culture

Pop art’s original artists were obsessed with TV, magazines, and billboards. Today’s pop-inspired artists are obsessed with memes, social media, and streaming.

Some modern examples include:

• Artwork that screenshots Instagram feeds and turns them into paintings or prints, highlighting how we curate our lives like ads.
• Meme-based prints that remix viral images (the “This is fine” dog, reaction GIF faces, etc.) into gallery pieces.
• NFT-era pop art that borrows from gaming skins, emoji, and internet slang as its visual vocabulary.

These are newer, real examples of cultural references in pop art in a digital key. Instead of Campbell’s Soup, you get TikTok dances. Instead of Marilyn, you get influencer selfies. The logic is the same: take what the culture can’t stop looking at and hold it up like a mirror.

If you’re curious how visual culture and media literacy intersect, the Library of Congress’s resources on visual literacy and primary sources are a helpful way to think about images as historical evidence—exactly the kind of evidence pop artists love to twist.

How to spot cultural references in pop art (and not miss the joke)

Once you’ve seen a few of the best examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples or more, you start noticing patterns. Here’s how to train your eye without turning it into a dry checklist.

Look for:

1. Familiar logos and packaging
If you recognize something from a store shelf, ad, or app icon, that’s a cultural reference. The artist is counting on your existing relationship with that object.

2. Celebrity faces and media stills
Publicity photos, movie stills, tabloid shots—these are favorite raw materials. When you see a famous face repeated, distorted, or recolored, you’re probably looking at pop-style commentary on fame.

3. Comic and cartoon styles
Ben-Day dots, speech bubbles, exaggerated expressions: these shout “mass media” and “cheap printing.” Lichtenstein is the classic example of this, but plenty of later artists quote the same visual language.

4. Collage of everyday stuff
If a work feels like a magazine exploded and reassembled itself, you’re in Hamilton territory. Appliances, food, fashion, and tech gear piled together are classic pop signals.

5. Irony and deadpan humor
Pop art often looks flat, cool, and a little emotionally distant—even when the subject is dramatic. That deadpan tone is part of the joke. Warhol painting a soup can with the same seriousness as a royal portrait is a visual shrug that says, “This is what we worship now.”

Once you start using these clues, you’ll find your own examples of cultural references in pop art in places that aren’t even labeled as pop—album covers, sneaker designs, brand collabs, and political posters.

Why these 3 examples still matter in 2024

So why keep circling back to these examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples from the 1950s and 60s when we live in a world of Reels, AI filters, and micro-influencers?

Because the basic pop art move hasn’t changed:

Take the images people see every day, repeat them, remix them, and show them back to us so we finally notice what they’re doing to us.

Warhol’s soup cans predicted our obsession with brands as identity. Lichtenstein’s comics prefigured the way we screenshot and repost content. Hamilton’s collage looks weirdly like a proto-Instagram mood board of “dream home aesthetics.”

Contemporary artists who reference memes, streaming culture, or celebrity branding are still building on those same three moves. That’s why the best examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples from the mid-20th century stay in textbooks and museum tours—they’re the origin story for how we see culture as material.

For more historical grounding on how American culture shifted toward mass media and consumerism—the environment that birthed pop art—resources from institutions like the National Endowment for the Humanities are worth exploring.

FAQ: examples of cultural references in pop art

Q: What are three famous examples of cultural references in pop art?
Three of the most cited examples of cultural references in pop art are Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” and “Marilyn Diptych,” Roy Lichtenstein’s comic-based works like “Whaam!” and “Drowning Girl,” and Richard Hamilton’s collage “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?” These works directly use or quote advertising, celebrity photos, and comic panels that were already familiar to the public.

Q: Can you give an example of a modern pop art cultural reference?
A strong modern example of cultural references in pop art is the work of KAWS, who reimagines cartoon characters and toy-like figures in paintings, sculptures, and street art. His figures echo well-known media icons while commenting on consumer culture, branding, and nostalgia. Meme-based artworks and Instagram-feed paintings are also real examples of how today’s pop-inspired artists reference digital culture.

Q: Are all pop art pieces based on real cultural references?
Most classic pop art uses real cultural references—logos, celebrities, comic strips, product photos—because the whole point is to work with images people already know. Some artists, however, invent “fake” brands or characters that still feel like they belong in mass media. Even then, those invented images are modeled on real-world references.

Q: How do I recognize good examples of cultural references in pop art, not just random bright colors?
Look for a clear link to something you’ve seen outside the art world: an ad, a logo, a famous face, a comic style, or a meme. Strong examples of cultural references in pop art don’t hide their sources; they flaunt them. If a piece feels like it could only exist in a gallery and not in everyday culture, it might be color-rich but not truly pop in spirit.

Q: Why do teachers often focus on the same 3 examples when explaining pop art?
Because those examples of cultural references in pop art: 3 examples—Warhol, Lichtenstein, Hamilton—are like a starter kit. They each highlight a key source of pop imagery: consumer goods, comics, and domestic advertising. Once students understand those, it’s easier to branch out to fashion collabs, street art, and digital pop that use the same strategies in new media.