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Richard Hamilton
Richard Hamilton, Release, 1972
1972

Name: Richard Hamilton, Release, 1972
Brand: Richard Hamilton
Rating: 5 (4 reviews)

$60,257.71List Price

About the Item

Screenprint in colours with collage of die-cut silver, 1972, on Hodgkinson mould-made paper, signed and numbered from the edition of 150, published by Petersburg Press SA for the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) and Release, sheet size: 95 x 70cm. 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. 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 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. 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. These were generated by the arrest and imprisonment of Hamilton’s art dealer Robert Fraser (1937-86) in 1967 for the possession of heroin. The Swingeing London paintings are all based on the same image – a photograph of Robert Fraser and the rock star Mick Jagger in a police van being taken from jail to court. The photograph, taken by John Twine, was published in the Daily Sketch newspaper on 29 June 1967 and shows the two men, handcuffed together, trying to shield their faces from the press photographers. Hamilton had come across the image in the collection of press cuttings Fraser’s secretary had given him, when he was creating the Swingeing London 67 poster, so he placed it at the top left corner of the composition. The completed print Release combines the seventeen colour screens and the photographic black screen, with an additional collage of die-cut silver on the handcuffs and highlights on Fraser’s glasses at stage 17. The build up of the image through the progressive addition of colour is documented by the series of stage proofs Hamilton donated to the Tate Gallery in 1977.

Creator:
Richard Hamilton (1922 - 2011, British)
Creation Year:
1972
Dimensions:
Height: 27.56 in (70 cm)Width: 37.41 in (95 cm)Depth: 0.04 in (1 mm)
Medium:
Screen
Movement & Style:
Pop Art
Period:
1970-1979
Condition:
Gallery Location:
London, GB
Reference Number:
Seller: 997391stDibs: LU4705703121

Shop All Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton was born in Pimlico, London on February 24, 1922. He did an apprenticeship for an electrical components firm, during which time he began to take evening classes at Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Westminster School of Art.

In 1938, Hamilton enrolled in the Royal Academy of Arts. His studies here were unfortunately cut short the following year as he joined the army as a technical draughtsman for the duration of World War II. Following the war, Hamilton spent two years at the Slade School of Art, University College, London.

Hamilton began to exhibit his art at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), and taught at the Central School of Art and Design from 1952. The first major exhibition of Hamilton’s paintings was shown at the Hanover Gallery, London in 1955. In 1993, Hamilton represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale and was awarded the Golden Lion. He has been the subject of several major exhibitions at Tate in London, notably in 1970 and 1992. Other retrospectives include at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1973, MACBA in Barcelona, Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

In 2010, the Serpentine Gallery presented Hamilton’s work “Modern Moral Matters,” an exhibition which largely focused on Hamilton’s political and protest works. Hamilton has been showcased in the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s “Richard Hamilton: Pop Art Pioneer 1922-2011,” and the National Gallery’s “Richard Hamilton: The Late Works” opened in 2012.

Hamilton has been awarded with the John Moores Painting Prize (1969), the Talens Prize International (1970), the Leone d’Oro (1993), the Arnold Bode Prize (1997) and has been made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2010. The Tate gallery in London has the largest repository of Hamilton’s work, but he is collected worldwide including at the Alan Cristea Gallery and the Museo Ncional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

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(Biography provided by Shapero Modern)

Richard HamiltonFashion-plate, 1969

Price Upon Request

H 39.1 in W 27.17 in

Fashion-plate

By Richard Hamilton

Located in London, GB

Photo-offset lithograph, collage, screenprint from two stencils, and pochoir, retouched with cosmetics by the artist. Signed in pencil and numbered from the edition of 70. On Fabrian...