Turner Prize 1988 artists: Richard Hamilton

Hamilton was born in London. He was educated at the Royal Academy Schools from 1938 to 1940, then studied engineering draughtsmanship at a Government Training Centre in 1940, then worked as a 'jig and tool' designer. He returned in 1946 to the Royal Academy Schools, from which he was expelled for 'not profiting from the instruction being given in the painting school' (Hamilton, p.10), then attended the Slade School of Art from 1948 to 1951.

Richard Hamilton
Swingeing London 67 (f) (1968–9)
Tate

© The estate of Richard Hamilton

Hamilton taught at the London Central School of Arts and Crafts and University of Newcastle upon Tyne; he gave up teaching full-time in 1966. He designed a typographic version of Duchamp’s Green Box, published in 1960, and in 1965-6, with Duchamp’s guidance, reconstructed Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (Tate Gallery T02011). Keen to embrace certain types of technology within his art, Hamilton began creating computer-generated works in the 1980s. He has had a long career as a print-maker, and in 1983 won the World Print Council Award. In 1991 he married the artist Rita Donagh. Retrospective exhibitions of Hamilton’s work have been held at the Hanover Gallery, 1964, the Tate Gallery, 1970 and 1992, and abroad. He was Britain’s representative at the 1993 Venice Biennale.

Close