Richard Hamilton
Epiphany
Date 1963 - 1989
Medium Cellulose on spun aluminum
Dimensions 115 x 115 x 8 cm
Inventory ID UID 102-248
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Richard Hamilton studied at the Royal Academy, then attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1948 to 1951. After practising abstract painting, he experimented with collage and the use of various materials from consumer culture. Richard Hamilton, in the late 1950s, was one of the inventors of the English version of pop art, more precocious and caustic than the American version. In 1952 he was one of the founders of the Independent Group, a confederation of artists who were the first to use the term ‘pop’ in 1958. Pop aspired to a synthesis with the ‘mass culture’ that had previously been considered ‘anti-artistic’. Hamilton made use of a vast number of references centred around sex, technology, entertainment and the mass media. ‘Slip It To Me’, proclaims the great disc of Epiphany, a sort of acceptance of the consumer world. It is a large scale reproduction of a badge Hamilton purchased during his first visit to the United States in 1963. Hamilton pointed out that this was precisely what he admired in American art at the time: ‘its audacity and wit.’ As a draughtsman, painter and designer, Hamilton achieved his widest recognition with his design for the sleeve and poster for the Beatles’ White Album of 1968. J-FC