Richard Hamilton (english)

Richard Hamilton´s exhibition catalogue (Museo Reina Sofía, June 27 - October 13, 2014)

This reference work looks over the entire career of Richard Hamilton, from his beginnings at the end of the 1940s to 2011. In addition to essays by Benjamin H.D. Buchloch, Hal Foster, Mark Godfrey, Alice Rawsthorn, Paul Schimmel, Fanny Singer, Victoria Walsh and Richard Hamilton himself, the catalogue is profusely illustrated and includes unpublished images of exhibitions held in the 1950s: Growth and Form; Man, Machine and Motion; and an Exhibit, in addition to his graphic work, publishing projects and the complete series of Polaroid portraits by some of his artist friends.


By virtue of more than 250 works produced between 1949 and 2011, this exhibition offers a comprehensive retrospective look at the work of Richard Hamilton (London, 1922 – 2011), a key figure in Pop Art and one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. It demonstrates how the artist was able to construct an incisive and multifaceted iconographic discourse that, via its playful and ironic veneer, set forth a critical reflection – not free from a certain degree of fascination – on consumer society and contemporary media imagery, at the same time as it explored and spilled over into the limits between the popular and the cult, the natural and the artificial, the figurative and the abstract.

The exhibition catalogue includes essays by Benjamin H.D. Buchloch, Hal Foster, Mark Godfrey, Richard Hamilton, Alice Rawsthorn, Paul Schimmel, Fanny Singer and Victoria Walsh.