RICHARD HAMILTON

Born in 1922, Hamilton is now the granddaddy of modern British art. He trained as a technical draughtsman in the war, and made money making models for design fairs after it. That interest in the applied arts and design has influenced both his works and the graphic layout of this exhibition (curators told me that it is significant that some of the pictures are hung at “dog height”). In the Fifties, Hamilton played a leading role in the avant-garde Independent Group, a band of artists, designers, architects and theorists who anticipated the informal yet intellectual approach of conceptual art with seminars, lectures and exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (happier days!). The culmination of this way of thinking was Hamilton’s Pop Art collage titled Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, so appealing? (1956), a parody of postwar consumerism. For a moment he exerted a major influence over the future of Pop Art — Warhol, Rosenquist, Polke, you name it — worldwide.

-This is London
March 4 2010