Richard William Hamilton

Richard William Hamilton was born at 24 February 1922 and died 13 September 2011.

He was an English painter and collage artist. His 1955 exhibition Man, Machine and Motion Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne and his 1956 collage, Just what, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, are considered by critics and historians to be among the earliest works of pop art. A major reflective of his work was at Tate Modern until May 2014.

Hamilton was born in Pimlico, London. Despite having left school with no formal qualifications, he managed to gain employment as an apprentice working at an electrical components firm, where he discovered an ability for "draughtsmanship" and began to do painting at evening classes at Saint Martin's School of Art. This led to his entry into the Royal Academy Schools.

After spending the war working as a technical draftsman, he re-enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools but was later expelled on grounds of not profiting from the instruction, loss of his student status forcing Hamilton to carry out National Service. After two years at the Slade School of Art, University College, London, Hamilton began exhibiting his work at the Organisation of Contemporary Arts, where he also produced posters and leaflets and teaching at the Central School of Art and Design.

Hamilton's early work was much influenced by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's 1917 text On Growth and Form. In 1952, at the first Independent Group meeting, held at the ICA, Hamilton was introduced to Eduardo Paolozzi's seminal presentation of collages produced in the late 1940s and early 1950s that are now considered to be the first standard bearers of Pop Art.

Also in 1952, he was introduced to the Green Box notes of Marcel Duchamp through Roland Penrose, whom Hamilton had met at the ICA. At the ICA, Hamilton was responsible for the design and installation of a number of exhibitions including one on James Joyce and The Wonder and the Horror of the Human Head that was curated by Penrose.