Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton is one of the most important and honored of living British artists. At an early age he diverged from the Surrealist directions that defined British modernism at the mid-20th century to explore the legacy of Dada. Hamilton is associated with the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, a post-war, multi-disciplinary public art organization that formed in 1947. There he began doing typography and graphic design, then became a founder of the ICA-based Independent Group, a seminal collective of scholars, artists, designers and architects that laid the groundwork for the transition from the modern to postmodern. From 1956-1968, Hamilton forged a close friendship with Marcel Duchamp, assisting the elder artist in his final years with the recuperation of lost original articles of his early years, from the reproduction of notebooks to making a replica of The Large Glass for the Tate Gallery, London. Hamilton himself created what many consider the original Pop artwork, a small collage titled Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? for the 1956 exhibition "This is Tomorrow" at the Whitechapel Gallery, London.