The Pictures Generation is a name for American artists of the late 1970s and early 1980s who worked with images taken from films, advertising and magazines.
The name comes from a small exhibition called Pictures. It ran from 24 September to 29 October 1977 at Artists Space, a gallery in New York. The critic Douglas Crimp organised it. It showed five artists: Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo and Philip Smith.
In spring 1979, Crimp published a new version of his essay "Pictures" in the journal October.
The name stayed. In 2009, the Metropolitan Museum of Art used it for the exhibition The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984. It showed thirty artists, among them Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince and Louise Lawler.
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