Richard hamilton writer1/13/2024 Because of the focus of Release on those suffering from drug abuse, Hamilton decided to use one of the images he had created in his Swingeing London group of works. The artists Jim Dine (born 1935) and David Hockney (born 1937) also contributed, deciding to divide the profits between Release and the National Council for Civil Liberties. In 1972, Diana Melly (married to the jazz musician, writer and critic George Melly and working for Release) asked Hamilton if he would make a print to help raise funds for the organisation which was in financial difficulties. The print Release derives its title from the name of an organisation set up to provide legal aid and social support to people who have fallen foul of the law, often as a result of drug abuse. Often unfolding in series, the works here repeat, distort and decontextualise found images, asking us to question what we see. Starting with images borrowed from mass media, he typically combined multiple techniques in ways that tested their ability to represent reality. Hamilton’s creative process was complex and experimental. Taking popular culture as his subject matter – especially that imported from the USA – Hamilton described his approach as shaped by a ‘peculiar mixture of reverence and cynicism.’ Under his critical gaze, codes of sexuality and gender are deconstructed, and the increasingly commercialised relationship between the human body and its environment comes into focus. In 1957, the artist proposed the first definition of Pop Art: ‘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.’ He was suspicious of the divide between traditional ‘high’ art and the seductive visual culture of everyday life: the cinema, television, advertising, glossy magazines. ![]() Richard Hamilton was relentlessly curious about what it means to live in a world saturated by mass-produced objects and images. ‘I would like to think of my purpose as a search for what is epic in everyday objects and everyday attitudes.’
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