Displaying items by tag: Richard Hamilton

From the Fabulous '40s through the Swinging '60s to now, Pop Art's style has endured.

Earlier this year, the Allentown Art Museum explored the beginning of Pop Art's story in "British Pop Art Prints," which revealed how American Pop Art grew from a movement that started in London in the late '40s and early '50s by British artists such as Richard Hamilton and Eduardo Paolozzi.

Then came the Americans — Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg — who rose from relative obscurity in New York to become some of the world's best-known artists, and had an influence on everything from design to fashion and film.

The museum explores that story in "American Pop: The Prints," an exhibit of works from the museum collection and Muhlenberg College that serves as a companion exhibit to "Robert Indiana from A to Z," a retrospective of work by one of the Pop movement's founding fathers.

“Popular, mass produced, expendable, cheap, witty, sexy, playful, conspicuous, seductive”- according to Richard Hamilton these are the characteristics that make something interesting and that he also demanded of his own artistic work. What the British artist formulated in 1957 as a new standard was considered scandalous at the time. A rejection of the prevailing art and its sublime values originality, authenticity, and “depth.” Pop Art was a liberation for some-and a trivial affront for others.

The exhibition "Ludwig Goes Pop" offers an opportunity to explore this phenomenon and to comprehend Pop Art as an expression of a modern attitude toward life. In the 1960s the “everyday” had arrived—it had made its way into art: in all manner of play, from humorously ironic to biting and critical, artists explored the Zeitgeist in their art, integrated fragments and quotes from the world of consumerism and advertising, comics, science, technology, erotic, and mass media.

British artist Richard Hamilton, who was regarded by many as the father of pop art, has died today aged 89.   
   
Hamilton created a string of renowned works throughout the sixties that inspired artists such as Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys.

He had continued working on his latest pieces up until a few days before his death. It is not yet known how he died.

Friends and former colleagues have today paid tribute to Hamilton, calling his influence on art 'immeasurable'.

'This is a very sad day for all of us and our thoughts are with Richard's family, particularly his wife Rita and his son Rod,' art dealer and gallery owner Larry Gagosian said.

A statement from the gallery called Hamilton the 'father of pop art' and a 'pioneering artist of unparalleled skill, invention and lasting authority.  

'His influence on subsequent generations of artists continues to be immeasurable.'  
        
Nicholas Serota, director of London's Tate gallery, added: 'Greatly admired by his peers, including (Andy) Warhol and (Joseph) Beuys, Hamilton produced a series of exquisite paintings, drawings, prints and multiples dealing with themes of glamour, consumption, commodity and popular culture.'