Richard Hamilton: British visionary

By Alastair Sooke Published: 12:31PM GMT 01 March 2010

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If any one deserves the pretension of Grand Old Man of British art, it is Richard Hamilton. He might have incited 88 last week, but he is still tough at work: he not long ago finished 3 large paintings for a new piece for one person muster opening at the Serpentine Gallery in London on Wednesday.

Yet, notwithstanding a renowned career in that he has represented Britain at the 1993 Venice Biennale and enjoyed not one, but dual retrospectives at the Tate Gallery, Hamilton is not well known by the wider open in the same approach as, say, David Hockney or Lucian Freud. As Hamiltons artist mother Rita Donagh says, when I encounter them both at the Serpentine, "Richard is the usually [established] British artist who hasnt had a book created about him."

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Whether or not this is wholly accurate, you get the gist: Hamilton is not a domicile name. And, since his majority unaccompanied achievements (he even written the gangling sleeve for the Beatles 1968 White Album), this actuality is both extraordinary and a travesty.

"I have a judgment of being deserted for majority of my life," Hamilton tells me, with a smile. "When I had a show at the Tate in 1992 [his last London exhibition], it was rated the misfortune show of the year. And I felt rather unapproachable of that, unequivocally Id come out on tip for something at last. But Ive regularly felt the same way: I never did anything that anybody else wanted."

This was generally loyal during the mid-Fifties, when Hamilton pioneered Pop art, ahead, he says, of British contemporaries such as Eduardo Paolozzi or his American counterparts Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Indeed, Hamilton is mostly credited with carrying invented the genre. A distinguished collage from 1956, an unrivalled research of the ways in that promotion can chase on comatose desires, even facilities a muscleman holding a red lollipop ornate with the word "Pop". Hamilton once famously tangible complicated consumer enlightenment as "witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, big business".

Like majority prophets, Hamilton feels that he was operative in siege half a century ago. "I felt alone," he tells me. "In the late Fifties, I finished 3 pictures: Hommage à Chrysler Corporation, Pin-up [now in the pick up of New Yorks Museum of Modern Art, that dates it 1961], and Hers is a Lush Situation. They were the 3 most appropriate things Ive ever done. I was unequivocally inventing something, and it was utterly a critical business. At the time, nobody was you do anything similar to that. I didnt have any await from alternative artists. There werent alternative artists. When I was portrayal those pictures, I asked [the art critic] Lawrence Alloway: "What do you think of my paintings? And he said: "I think theyre stupid. "

Over the decades that followed, though, Hamiltons work valid prophetic and incredibly influential. For 4 years, he taught at the Royal College of Art, where he was an early believer of David Hockney and R B Kitaj.

"The students asked me to do whats called a "crit," he recalls. "After Id looked at everything, I pronounced Im meddlesome in this painting, and that one one was by Hockney, the alternative by Kitaj. I even asked if they were by the same artist. And there was a cackle because, in the students minds, Hockney was duplicating what Kitaj did.

"Hockneys work was unequivocally painterly and colourful, and rather brash. Kitajs was reduce key. In the end, I gave the esteem to Hockney and he has never looked back. He once pronounced that I gave him his initial pat on the back, and that altered his life. And I have regularly felt maybe I finished the wrong decision."

Does it worry Hamilton that Hockney has left on to grasp larger celebrity than he has? "No, I similar to him," Hamilton says. "But I think hes not as great as his enthusiasts claim. I dont protest about anything, really. Ive had a unequivocally successful life."

His work has not left unacknowledged: he once declined a CBE. "Instead, about twenty years ago, I was since a label that admits me to the National Gallery at any time of the day or night," Hamilton says. "I recollect going to see a Mantegna exhibition. I sat for half an hour in front of these smashing paintings. There were no interruptions, not even a ensure on foot past. Now, thats a reward."

"Richard Hamilton: Modern Moral Matters is at the Serpentine Gallery, London W2 (020 7402 6075), from Wed