In Horne’s House

Richard Hamilton (1922 - 2011)

Hard-, soft-ground and stipple etching, lift ground aquatint and engraving

1981-1982

Share this:

© R. Hamilton. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2016

License this image

Image of In Horne’s House
  • About the work
    Location
    Country: Egypt
    City: Cairo
    Place: British Embassy
  • About the artist
    Richard Hamilton was born in London into a working class family and left school without any formal qualifications. He started work as an apprentice in an electrical components firm where he discovered his skill as a draughtsman and he began attending evening classes at St Martin's School of Art. After working as a technical draughtsman during the second World War, he enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools but was later expelled on grounds of ‘not profiting from the instruction’. The loss of his student status forced Hamilton to undertake National Service after which he studied at the Slade School of Art from 1948 to 1951. In 1952 he co-curated a series of exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London, which are regarded as marking the beginning of British Pop Art. In 1956, Hamilton exhibited work in the This is Tomorrow exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London. His poster for the exhibition has subsequently become one of the most famous pieces of Pop Art. The collage, Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? (1956), combines images of a male body-builder, a vacuum cleaner, a television, a can of tinned ham and a Ford car logo, among other items. In his use of advertisements and images from magazines and newspapers, Hamilton’s work emphasised how popular visual could be incorporated into fine art. In 1957 Hamilton wrote in a letter to his friends, the architects, Peter and Alison Smithson: Pop art is: Popular (designed for a mass audience), Transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low Cost, Mass Produced, young (aimed at youth), Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big Business. The success of This Is Tomorrow secured Hamilton’s position in the art world and he exhibited consistently. In the early 1960s he was pivotal in the preservation of Kurt Schwitters Merzbau, now installed at the Hatton Gallery in the university of Newcastle and in 1966 curated the first British retrospective of Marcel Duchamp's work at the Tate in 1966. In 1993 Hamilton represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale and was awarded the Golden Lion. A comprehensive selection of his work is held at the Tate and a retrospective was held at Tate Modern, three years after his death at the age of 89 in 2014.
  • Explore
  • Details
    Title
    In Horne’s House
    Edition
    117/120
    Date
    1981-1982
    Medium
    Hard-, soft-ground and stipple etching, lift ground aquatint and engraving
    Dimensions
    width: 58.50 cm, height: 76.00 cm
    Acquisition
    Purchased from Alan Cristea Gallery, March 2002
    Inscription
    below image: In Horne's House / R Hamilton 117/120
    Provenance
    Alan Cristea Gallery, London
    GAC number
    17651