Two prominent figures within the pop art movement, Donald Sultan and Alex Katz, most noted for figurative art which includes sculpture, paintings, and prints.

Alex Katz’s work is most famous for its use of flat blocks of color and for using portraits of loved ones and nature. His style is a bit more subdued than what most people consider pop art, but it is still vivid and colorful enough with enough abstract styling to make Katz one of the figureheads for the pop art movement. His family was born in Soviet Russia but moved to New York City and had a rather normal childhood. However, it wouldn’t be until Alex Katz attended the renowned Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture where he started to develop his true voice within the art community, especially with the usage of natural elements in his landscapes, portraits, and sculptures. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he remained a staple within the pop art movement with his simple yet provoking artwork. In the 1970s, Alex Katz would eventually find himself doing more and more collages, set designs, and printmaking pieces – especially on woodblocks that he would layer with materials to give a special 3D effect. His work led to huge, completely engrossing solo exhibits where Alex Katz transported viewers into his own world and landscapes both figuratively and literally. Instead of traditional paints, Donald Sultan is using industrialized materials such as tar used on streets and roofs of buildings or material like spackle, enamel, and even vinyl and ceramic tiles that are all used together to create a unique and highly original piece of artwork. Interestingly, Donald Sultan was mostly exposed to the culture and lifestyle of Appalachian people at a very early age after having lived most of his life in the mountains of North Carolina. This allowed Sultan to later on in life start developing a portfolio of paintings of wild flowers like poppies or daisies, food, or even simple pleasures like a deck of cards. Donald Sultan eventually went to college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, receiving his Bachelors of Fine Arts and then going on to receive his Masters of Fine Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago. However, going into the 1970s and 1980s, Donald Sultan moved to New York City to establish himself as a noted artist. It is also where he began to utilize strange materials to create his original pieces of artwork.