RICHARD HAMILTON:IN 1956 Richard Hamilton, who has died aged 89, attracted attention with his collaged poster image for the
This Is Tomorrowexhibition at the Whitechapel gallery in London.
It was quite shocking: a naked woman on a sofa and a bodybuilding he-man holding an oversized lollipop labelled “Pop” in a prominent position, lots of domestic gadgets including a TV, the cover of a comic presented as a framed painting, an all-too-urban scene through the landscape window, the ceiling covered with a space-age photo of Earth.From then on he was referred to as the father of pop art, but celebrating lowbrow culture was never his aim. He did not share pop art’s idolisation of advertisements and comic strips, nor the teenage dreams much of it referred to. His analysis of the methods of commercial and technical image-making was matched by his study of high art; when he quoted commercial images in his art they usually came from the top end of the market.
He was a member of the Independent Group of artists, architects and critics within the Institute of Contemporary Arts, who met to discuss popular culture as a then unregarded but vivid element in a seamless world of communication from which the fine arts might derive strength.
In 1978, the National Gallery in London invited him to assemble the second The Artist's Eyeexhibition from its collection; Anthony Caro had done the first. The result was a purposeful confronting of fine old paintings and modern imagery.
Hamilton was born in Pimlico, London, the son of Peter, a driver for a car showroom, and his wife, Constance. He attended art evening classes from the age of 12. When he was 13, he was advised to apply to the Royal Academy Schools at 16. The schools closed in 1940. Too young for conscription, Hamilton was sent to learn tool-making and engineering drawing, and then worked as a draughtsman, mostly for EMI.
In 1946 Hamilton was allowed to go back to the RA schools, only to be thrown out for not bowing to RA priorities. There followed service in the Royal Engineers a camouflage course and time to read and reread Ulysses.He started making illustrations to Ulysses, and returned to them throughout his life. The British Museum showed them in Imaging James Joyce's Ulysses(2002).
Hamilton was primarily a painter. His self-portrait Palindrome(1974) is at once modest and demanding: he shows himself reflected in a mirror towards which he leans rather as Artemisia Gentileschi leans towards her self-portrait canvas. That is, we see his hand on and in it, dabbing paint on it, and beyond it his own image; only the mirror plane, visible thanks to those dabs, is in sharp focus. As we look and move, we realise this is a 3-D photograph, planned and executed with care. Hamilton was made a Companion of Honour in 2000. In 2010 the Serpentine show Modern Moral Mattersbrought together his political works including Shock and Awe(2007-08).
In 1947, he married Terry O’Reilly. They had a daughter, Dominy, and a son, Roderic. Terry’s accidental death in 1962 was a grievous blow to him. Subsequently Hamilton lived with the painter Rita Donagh; they worked independently but often side-by-side, and sometimes collaborated. They married in 1991. Hamilton is survived by Rita and Rod; Dominy predeceased him.
Richard Hamilton, born February 24th, 1922; died September 13th, 2011