By Begum Oral
It started on a cold Saturday afternoon at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The gallery has a lot of exhibitions these days; my choice was Richard Hamilton’s “Cut, Paste, Print”, which started on Jan. 26, and will continue until June 9.
Richard Hamilton (1922-2011)
Keith Bates’s archive, creative commons
A narrow corridor finally took me to Hamilton’s work placed on a small corner of the floor. I first glanced at the description of the artist; Hamilton (1922 – 2011) was a painter, printmaker, collage and Pop Art artist in Britain. He’s considered the “father of pop art”. His sense of humour and modesty accompanied his talent and creativity.
In the 1950s, Hamilton was impressed by the effect of mass media and popular culture on modern life. Pop Art is young, cheap, easily forgotten, temporary, and mass-produced. Hamilton used newspapers, advertisements, magazines, and images – especially ironic images – as his main resources.
As a printmaker, he also tried new techniques combining cut-paper collage with offset lithography, photography and screen-printing. Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? is his best-known collage work, which started the Pop Art movement.
In the 1960s, Hamilton used images of celebrities as Rolling Stones, Marilyn Monroe and Francis Bacon. Swingeing London 67 is one of his famous prints, which shows Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones handcuffed in the back of a police van. His works comprise gimmicky, sexy, and charming items like a stunning rock star on the stage under the flashing lights. Themes of consumption, blurriness, glamour, and commodity were mainly used in order to produce paintings, prints and drawings. He also designed the sleeve of the Beatles White Album.
The exhibition provides his most important works based on images from magazines and newspapers. You can also see the artist’s self-portrait on Time magazine and another interesting work called Toaster.
Hamilton had a different way of creating, using unusual techniques, and combining extraordinary themes and popular culture. It is a short story of the existence of popular culture in art. Enjoy it!
