Richard Hamilton: Towards a Definitive Statement will explore the themes of protest, portraiture, interior scenes and landscapes in Hamilton’s work and will coincide with the publication of a new book by Michael Bracewell that will provide a fresh interpretation of an artist whose achievements and legacy remain unparalleled.
Richard Hamilton, who is often described as ‘the father of Pop art’, was largely responsible for the radical developments which transformed the British art scene in the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibition will feature a number of Hamilton’s most celebrated prints including that of his seminal 1956 collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?. This was the work in which the word ‘Pop’ first appeared, the term that then lent itself to an international art movement which was defined by Hamilton himself in a now famous letter written in 1957 stating that “Pop Art is: popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business.”
Hamilton was an artist who drew directly upon the social changes he was witnessing, whether reflecting on the rise of popular, consumer culture or on the mediation of political events. Works on display include My Marilyn, 1965, for which Hamilton appropriated publicity stills of Marilyn Monroe published in a British magazine after her suicide. In Release,1972, he depicts the arrest of his friend and art dealer Robert Fraser, along with Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger, during a notorious drugs raid by the police on Keith Richard’s home. In 1968 Hamilton also worked closely with Paul McCartney on the design of what was to become known as The Beatles’ White Album. The collage, incorporated within the record sleeve,and then transformed into an original print in 2007, will also be on view in the exhibition.
Works which addressed wider contemporary issues and political subjects, include Kent State, 1970, made by Hamilton after watching reports of students protests at Kent State University, Ohio, in 1970 that culminated in the shooting of student demonstrators. Later works tackled subjects such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which saw Hamilton produce a depiction of a republican detainee at the Maze Prison in The Citizen, 1985.
Hamilton’s teaching and innovative work with installation and exhibition design was also of great significance and continues to influence artistic and curatorial practice to this day. This was witnessed in his collaboration on exhibitions such as This is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, in 1956 and in Man, Machine and Motion at the ICA, London, in 1955, when he was a leading member of the Independent Group.