Tom Wesselmann taught himself to draw cartoons but viewed his collegiate study of art as an entirely separate phenomenon from that pursuit. A painter, print maker and sculptor, his work was initially more in line with abstract impressionism. However, in the late 50's he made large collages from found objects and magazine clippings and was considered a leading pop artist. He is known for his images of everyday life where American domestic interiors became the settings for his highly sanitized and usually faceless female nudes.

Wesselmann once described a turning point in his career as a time when he fell in with the wrong crowd. In his art, which contains allusions to the sexual emphasis in contemporary advertising as well as depictions of the banal aspects of consumer culture, Wesselmann has gone from wrong crowd to in crowd with his contemporaries in pop art.

Wesselmann’s work is found in major international collections, including:

Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Tate Gallery, London
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
National Gallery, Berlin