Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton Bibliography. a selection Richard Hamilton: Modern Moral Matters. With his memorably titled 1956 collage “Just What is it that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?”, British artist Richard Hamilton (born 1922) heralded the British Pop revolution; and with his 1967 Swingeing London series of prints, which depicted the arrest of Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser, Hamilton’s art entered the general public consciousness. But unlike so many Pop artists, Hamilton was never an uncritical or ambivalent advocate of postwar society, and he has often agitated directly against it, producing a great deal of openly political, satirical work that assaults both consumer culture at large and more immediate political events. This monograph, published for Hamilton’s 2010 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London (his first exhibition since 1992), brings together Hamilton’s famous “protest” paintings as well as newer political works and features essays by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Michael Bracewell. Richard Hamilton. Richard Hamilton is a key figure in twentieth-century art. An original member of the legendary Independent Group in London in the 1950s, Hamilton organized or participated in groundbreaking exhibitions associated with the group—in particular This Is Tomorrow (1956), for which his celebrated collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?, crystallizing the postwar world of consumer capitalism, was made. With his colleagues in the Independent Group, Hamilton promoted the artistic investigation of popular culture, undertaking this analysis in paintings, prints, and texts, thus setting the stage for Pop art—indeed, he is often called the intellectual father of Pop. Collaborations: Relations—Confrontations. Richard Hamilton first made contact with Dieter Roth in 1961, having first seen some of his books the previous year. From then until Roth’s death in 1998, the two artists collaborated on numerous projects as well as developing a close friendship based on mutual admiration for each other’s work. Their personalities and approaches to art were in many ways totally different, but this, no doubt, was part of the attraction. For Roth the collaborations were always a challenge, a fight - albeit friendly. ‘He eats me, I eat him, and then we see what’s left.’ Hamilton saw them as joyrides, full of surprises in which he was carried along by Roth’s ‘meticulous dexterity’ and ‘creative energy’.

Style and technique, exhibitions: Painting, Pop Art,

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