Richard Hamilton (1922–2011)

My school art teacher Ernest Constable first showed me Richard Hamilton‘s iconic “Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?”, but I thought this was fun. And if the artist really did sign 5,000 prints, he certainly put some work into it, even above the “many weeks” it was said to have created the digital picture. We saw him on TV making the work in a BBC QED film in 1993 , with new-fangled technology such as an Apple computer and a Kodak digital camera. We were invited to write in for one of the prints (posted out for free, by second class mail I see now looking at the envelope with the address at which I then lived). You felt you were part of the work. And even in this, images of war, famine and other political references help give the lie to accusations that his art was dumb.

 

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