Richard Hamilton, Pop Art Progenitor, Dies at 89
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 TAGS:
Chances are you already own one of pop art pioneer Richard Hamilton's most successful pieces. In 1968 on the heels of the florid, psychedelic cover of their previous album, St. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles released the famously austere eponymous White Album. The cover of the album was designed by Hamilton, who died yesterday at the age of 89. The White Album cover was a piece of conceptual art: blank white with embossed lettering of the band's name and a serial number, as if it were a small run of a limited edition print, rather than a multimillion copy-selling record from the most popular band on earth.
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Here was Hamilton, translating the marks of the insular world of conceptual art to a popular, commercial product. It was the inverse of taking the visual vocabulary of everyday commercial life and making into coveted, expensive art.
This was pop art. Curators and art historians to this day point to Hamilton's 1956 piece "Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?” as the first example of the Pop Art that Warhol and Lichtenstein made into an indispensable part of late 20th century American identity.
That he was a Brit should also be noted. The mish mash of high and low culture messaging, use of collage and parodying of authority preceded the strategies of street artists like Banksy. Hamilton also helped the migration of Pop Art from English shores to New York by way of numerous published written works. Obituaries find Hamilton quotable:
-The Telegraph:
“My ambition was to be multi-allusive,” he once observed. “I wanted to get all of living into my work.”
-New York Times quotes from an article Hamilton wrote in Architectural Design:
“But I would like to think of my purpose as a search for what is epic in everyday objects and attitudes.”
-The Guardian calls Hamilton "the most influential British artist of the 20th century."
In a Letter that he wrote to architects Peter and Alison Smithson in January 1957, Hamilton penned an oft-quoted definition of Pop Art:
Pop Art is:
Popular (designed for a mass audience)
Transient (short-term solution)
Expendable (easily-forgotten)
Low cost
Mass produced
Young (aimed at youth)
Witty
Sexy
Gimmicky
Glamorous
Big Business
Hamilton's role as a progenitor is well documented. But a further contention can be made: he was the bridge from Duchamp's playful subversion of mass produced objects to the post-Warhol world that art critic Arthur Danto called, "Beyond the Brillo Box." Richard Hamilton helped the world of objects and world of art become an arena of constant mirroring and allusion.
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Hommage a Chrysler Corp. (1957)
Here was Hamilton, translating the marks of the insular world of conceptual art to a popular, commercial product. It was the inverse of taking the visual vocabulary of everyday commercial life and making into coveted, expensive art.This was pop art. Curators and art historians to this day point to Hamilton's 1956 piece "Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?” as the first example of the Pop Art that Warhol and Lichtenstein made into an indispensable part of late 20th century American identity.
That he was a Brit should also be noted. The mish mash of high and low culture messaging, use of collage and parodying of authority preceded the strategies of street artists like Banksy. Hamilton also helped the migration of Pop Art from English shores to New York by way of numerous published written works. Obituaries find Hamilton quotable:
-The Telegraph:
“My ambition was to be multi-allusive,” he once observed. “I wanted to get all of living into my work.”
-New York Times quotes from an article Hamilton wrote in Architectural Design:
“But I would like to think of my purpose as a search for what is epic in everyday objects and attitudes.”
-The Guardian calls Hamilton "the most influential British artist of the 20th century."
In a Letter that he wrote to architects Peter and Alison Smithson in January 1957, Hamilton penned an oft-quoted definition of Pop Art:
Pop Art is:
Popular (designed for a mass audience)
Transient (short-term solution)
Expendable (easily-forgotten)
Low cost
Mass produced
Young (aimed at youth)
Witty
Sexy
Gimmicky
Glamorous
Big Business
Hamilton's role as a progenitor is well documented. But a further contention can be made: he was the bridge from Duchamp's playful subversion of mass produced objects to the post-Warhol world that art critic Arthur Danto called, "Beyond the Brillo Box." Richard Hamilton helped the world of objects and world of art become an arena of constant mirroring and allusion.
Hommage a Chrysler Corp. (1957)
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