RichardHAMILTON
About
Recognised as the father of British pop art, Richard Hamilton is hard to categorise.
Though he used a wide variety of techniques during his career, his most recognizable works were done in collage. His interest in the work of Marcel Duchamp led him to experiment with new techniques and languages over the years, to the point that he increasingly used digital devices to manipulate images, thus creating a dialogue between technique, technology and aesthetics.
Richard Hamilton was born in London in 1922; after his studies at Westmister Technical College, St. Martin’s School of Art, the Royal Academy School and lastly at the Slade School of Art, he started working in advertising. In 1950 he had his first solo show at Gimpel Fils Galery exhibiting a selection of graphics and the year after he started to work with the Contemporary Art Institute of London.
He was a founding member of the Independent Group, aiming at analyzing the cultural movements within society. In the mid Fifties he started making collages, showing the mythology of everyday, and became one of the forerunners and of the most important representatives of British pop.
What makes our homes so different and so lovely? was the symbol of the exhibition This is Tomorrow, that was organised in 1956 at Whitechapel Gallery, curated by Hamilton himself and by the members of the Independent Group.
The main subjects of his following works are domestic interiors, obsessive images from the mass media, status symbols of the entertainment society ($he, 1958-61; Adonis in Y Fronts, 1962; Interior, 1964-65).
In the mid Sixties, after a trip to the United States, he realised a series of works dedicated to the Guggenheim Museum, that he exhibited at the Robert Fraser Gallery and later at Studio Marconi.
In the same years he started the reconstruction of Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass, and in 1966 he organised a retrospective dedicated to him at the Tate Gallery.
Hamilton was invited to teach in the most important schools in Britain and earned significant recognition. From the Seventies onwards he had important exhibitions (1974, New York, Munich and Tübingen; 1979, 1982 and 1992, Tate Gallery, London). In 1982 Thames & Hudson published an anthology of his writings.
In 2003 his works were displayed in a huge solo show at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
Richard Hamilton died in September 2011.
Though he used a wide variety of techniques during his career, his most recognizable works were done in collage. His interest in the work of Marcel Duchamp led him to experiment with new techniques and languages over the years, to the point that he increasingly used digital devices to manipulate images, thus creating a dialogue between technique, technology and aesthetics.
Richard Hamilton was born in London in 1922; after his studies at Westmister Technical College, St. Martin’s School of Art, the Royal Academy School and lastly at the Slade School of Art, he started working in advertising. In 1950 he had his first solo show at Gimpel Fils Galery exhibiting a selection of graphics and the year after he started to work with the Contemporary Art Institute of London.
He was a founding member of the Independent Group, aiming at analyzing the cultural movements within society. In the mid Fifties he started making collages, showing the mythology of everyday, and became one of the forerunners and of the most important representatives of British pop.
What makes our homes so different and so lovely? was the symbol of the exhibition This is Tomorrow, that was organised in 1956 at Whitechapel Gallery, curated by Hamilton himself and by the members of the Independent Group.
The main subjects of his following works are domestic interiors, obsessive images from the mass media, status symbols of the entertainment society ($he, 1958-61; Adonis in Y Fronts, 1962; Interior, 1964-65).
In the mid Sixties, after a trip to the United States, he realised a series of works dedicated to the Guggenheim Museum, that he exhibited at the Robert Fraser Gallery and later at Studio Marconi.
In the same years he started the reconstruction of Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass, and in 1966 he organised a retrospective dedicated to him at the Tate Gallery.
Hamilton was invited to teach in the most important schools in Britain and earned significant recognition. From the Seventies onwards he had important exhibitions (1974, New York, Munich and Tübingen; 1979, 1982 and 1992, Tate Gallery, London). In 1982 Thames & Hudson published an anthology of his writings.
In 2003 his works were displayed in a huge solo show at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
Richard Hamilton died in September 2011.
