British pop artist Richard Hamilton dies at 89
JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — British Pop Art pioneer Richard Hamilton, who depicted Tony Blair as a cowboy and designed a Beatles album cover, has died. He was 89.
The Gagosian Gallery, which represents Hamilton, said the artist died early Tuesday at an undisclosed location in Britain. It did not give the cause of death.
The gallery said that with his death, “the art world has lost one of its leading figures.” It said Hamilton’s influence on younger artists was “immeasurable.”
Hamilton was often called the “Father of Pop Art” – Britain’s answer to Andy Warhol – and was credited with coining the name for a movement marked by its ironic and iconic use of commercial and pop-culture imagery.
Born in London in 1922, Hamilton studied at the Royal Academy Schools and the Slade School of Fine Art, and made his name in the 50s with “Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?” A collage showing a physically idealized naked couple – the man holding a red lollipop marked “Pop” – in a product-strewn home, it was a seminal work of Pop Art.