Most influential British artist of 20th c., founder of Pop Art, dies at 89

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Richard Hamilton, the original pop artist, dies at 89
Driven by intellect and political belief, Hamilton created undying icons of the modern world
Richard Hamilton, the most influential British artist of the 20th century, has died aged 89.

In his long, productive life he created the most important and enduring works of any British modern painter.

This may sound a surprising claim. We have our national icons and our pop celebrities. But neither Francis Bacon nor Lucian Freud nor Damien Hirst has shaped modern art as Hamilton did when he put a lolly with the word POP on it in the hand of a muscleman in his 1956 collage, c

Hamilton has a serious claim to be the inventor of pop art: this collage is a visionary, yet ironic, manifesto for a new art that would be at home in the modern world. For him, in a postwar Britain of austerity measures, pop was a utopian ideal. Big, fast cars were the metal angels of a smooth, beautiful future.
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much more at Guardian link above, Telegraph link below
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Daily Telegraph Obituary: Richard Hamilton
Richard Hamilton, who died on September 13 aged 89, was often described as the founder of Pop Art – much to his frustration.

This was because, although he was the creator of iconic “Pop” images, and was the first artist to use the word in a painting, Hamilton exhibited a versatility which resisted easy definition .

Whether working with “found objects”, or as painter, typographer, collagist, printmaker, graphic designer, digital image manipulator, screen printer, photographer, software programmer or computer builder, Hamilton was committed to exploring and blurring the boundaries of “high” and “low” culture even as they were refashioned by television, cinema and rock music.

“My ambition was to be multi-allusive,” he once observed. “I wanted to get all of living into my work.”
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Study for a fashion plate
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1969
 
We have lost so much talent this year, Amy Winehouse, Lucien Freud, Pete Postlethwaite, Elizabeth Taylor, Gerry Rafferty, Smiley Culture, I could go on and on :(
 

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