Pop Art Puzzle by Andrew Rae – Laurence King – 1000 pieces

This amazing puzzle was one of the most interesting and entertaining puzzles I’ve done in a VERY long time. I started in the morning around 8 am, and was finished by 10 pm – it was beautiful, educational, interesting, weird, and FUN!

It’s going to be an extremely long post, so buckle up!

Laurence King is a new to me brand, and I was duly impressed by the excellent quality. (The World of Frankenstein was my second LK puzzle to be assembled, but was posted last month for the Halloween holiday) These puzzles are manufactured in the Netherlands, and the puzzles seem to be exactly the same quality of a Jumbo puzzle. The fit is exquisite, the image reproduction is bright and crisp with a variety of piece shapes and the waxy-feeling finish that makes it seem like a premium quality puzzle – because it is!

*Beware though, it seems puzzles by the same brand that are made in China are not of the same quality as those made in the Netherlands. If you can’t be sure where the puzzle was manufactured proceed with caution. I would only purchase ones I was certain were made in the Netherlands.*

According to the surprisingly large (23 x 17 in.) poster in the box, “This puzzle presents illustrator Andrew Rae’s reimagined version of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, taking the glorious and surreal scene in a new, pop-art-inspired direction.” There is a wonderfully detailed and interesting section about both Bosch’s Garden and the pop art movement along with a legend of the artists and artwork represented in this image.

I loved learning about the artists and seeing the portrayals of well-known (and some not as well-known, at least to me) artists and artwork. The image isn’t something I would normally choose for puzzling, but the subject matter and the included poster with so much information was just too good to pass up. As it turns out, it was much more engrossing than expected and the assembly was truly delightful. 💛

It was so difficult to decide what pictures to take, and in the end I only took three; there is just too much to see! At the end of this post, though, I’ll be giving you the list of the 56 representations of the artists and artwork shown. It’s all just too interesting for me to give you just a regular old post about this puzzle.

Educational puzzles (which is what I consider this to be) make me so happy, and learning more about pop art and seeing the artwork reimagined or just paintings of the artists themselves was fascinating. I cannot seem to find the right words to tell you how much I loved this puzzle!

This tiny little section shows the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and a rabbit sculpture fabricated by Jeff Koons. I’m a big fan of Keith Haring’s work, so of course his image was the first picture I wanted to take from the completed puzzle. The 32,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with Haring’s artwork, Double Retrospect, was the first one I considered assembling seven years ago when I made the decision to complete a VERY large piece count puzzle. Unfortunately at the time it was already out of print and unavailable. Of all the puzzles of that size available at the time, his artwork was the one that stood out and really excited me; although after assembling a different enormous puzzle I realize that his image would have been extremely difficult with the limited color palette and big blocks of solid color.

🎶Here I come to save the day!🎶 This is Andy Kaufman doing his famous rendition of the Mighty Mouse theme song on Saturday Night Live. I’m a comedy nerd as well as a proud puzzle geek, so this little section jumped right out at me and made me smile.

In this small section of the image (perhaps about 11% of the puzzle) are so many things to find. Of course Botticelli’s Venus jumps right out at you, but did you catch Monet’s Water Lilies? Or Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais? Bacchus by Caravaggio? Have you heard of A Bigger Splash by David Hockney? I hadn’t. Jackson Pollock is decorating a mushroom, and the man just to the left of him is the artist who created the image for this puzzle, Andrew Rae. There are even more just in this section, there’s so much to see and find – and it was so much fun!

This was so enjoyable, not only for the great quality puzzle but the subject matter as well. I loved looking for each of the artists or the artwork and found it to be educational as well as entertaining. Laurence King has quite a few puzzles like this by different artists, each one with a different subject; Freddie Mercury, Jane Austen, James Bond, The Harlem Renaissance, Dracula, Shakespeare, Frida Kahlo, Wes Anderson, The Story of Impressionism, and many more. My PADS is kicking into overdrive!

This puzzle is very highly recommended, I absolutely adored it.💖

Stay tuned for the list of artists and artwork represented in this image…

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1. Andy Warhol
2. Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol
3. Yayoi Kusama
4. Grayson Perry
5. Niki de Saint Phalle
6. Varvara Stepanova
7. Venus by Botticelli
8. Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais
9. David by Michelangelo
10. Salvador Dalí
11. Rhinoceros by Albrecht Dürer
12. Andy Kaufman
13. Tracey Emin
14. Balloon Dogs by Jeff Koons
15. Rabbit sculptures by Jeff Koons
16. The Wounded Deer by Frida Kahlo
17. For the Love of God by Damien Hirst
18. Jean-Michel Basquiat
19. Pablo Picasso
20. Water Lilies by Claude Monet
21. The Son of Man by Rene Magritte
22. La Tauromaquia by Francisco de Goya
23. Little Yellow Horses and Little Blue Horse by Franz Marc
24. Henri Matisse
25. Viva la Vida, Watermelons by Frida Kahlo
26. John Cage
27. Keith Haring
28. Marie-Thérèse Walter
29. Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh
30. The Monarch of the Glen by Edwin Landseer
31. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst
32. Fountain by Marcel Duchamp
33. A Bigger Splash by David Hockney
34. Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe by Édouard Manet
35. Portrait of Pope Julius II by Raphael
36. The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai
37. Catherine the Great
38. Horse with Jockey: Horse Galloping on the Right Foot, the Back Left Foot Only Touching the Ground by Edgar Degas
39. Capricho no. 39: Hasta su abuelo by Francisco de Goya
40. Gilbert & George
41. Tiger in a Tropical Storm by Henri Rousseau
42. Andrew Rae
43. La recontre, ou “Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet” by Gustave Courbet
44. Cornelia Parker
45. Claude Monet
46. Mr and Mrs Andrews by Thomas Gainsborough
47. Bacchus by Caravaggio
48. Young Hare by Albrecht Dürer
49. Hugo Ball
50. Jackson Pollock
51. Triadisches Ballett by Oskar Schlemmer
52. Chris Ofili
53. Dismemberment, Site 1 by Anish Kapoor
54. The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck
55. Max Ernst the Birdman by Martin Sharp
56. Leap into the Void by Yves Klein