I had also been through a Tom Hudson Basic Course (Victor Pasmore type) that amplified the effects.
But Pop Art struck me soon after: Richard Hamilton's 'Slip It To Me' exhibition, Reyner Banham et al. That 'movement' resonates with me still. You can't be me, I'm taken
We had an American critic/lecturer give a talk about recent US art. The head of the school asked me what I thought - I wasn't impressed by the semi-religious reverence for the flatness of the canvas - so just give it another coat of white paint - what "respect"! :-)
I was impressed by a show of Rauschenberg's work, but not by most Pop art. The guy who DID impress me (associated with Brit pop artists, but an American living in London and doing very different work) was Ron Kitaj. I went to a lecture he gave - bright, very learned and articulate guy. He said: "The idea that it is a novel concept to be concerned with the edges of the painting tetters on the brink of the absurd." His paintings then were montages with some very arcane references (in the catalogue) he also said: "Some books have pictures and some pictures have books." My pictures almost lead to books :-)
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
