Page 62 - Studio International - May 1970

12 Few American artists, Roy Lichtenstein in- even sinister, appearance. And it is interesting
Hamilton Richard
People Multiple (1/1) 1968 cluded, have produced a more straightfor- to read in the same interview of Hockney's
Photographs ward pop picture than Hockney's Early admiration for Hopper and Balthus. In fact
17¼ x 27¼ in.
Sergio Tosi, Milan Morning in Ste Maxime. Few American realists, the common view of Hockney's art as simple,
13 Edward Hopper included, have produced a carefree, light and comic, is belied by the
Richard Hamilton more intriguing picture than Hockney's most paintings though reinforced by the graphics.
Bathers 1 1966-67
Mixed media on recent work, Le Parc des Sources at Vichy. I find some of his recent paintings, for example
photograph on canvas the portrait of Isherwood and Bachardy, cold,
33 x 46 in. Both paintings, like a good deal of his recent
Galerie Hans Neuendorf, Hamburg work, are based on photographs, and here mysterious, even sad. Again the view often
14 Hockney really does seem to have a common expressed that he is a much better graphic
Richard Hamilton artist than he is a painter seems to miss the
Swingeing London 67 (a) 1968-9 link with Hamilton, though their manner of
Oil on canvas and silkscreen, 26i x 374 in. using photographs is rather different. point. He is a much more complex artist when
Robert Fraser Gallery, London
In the very interesting interview with Mark he paints, more difficult, more experimental,
Glazebrook in the catalogue to the White- more capable of providing meanings within
chapel exhibition Hockney points out that meanings, richer in his use of differing tech-
sometimes he has the idea of a painting in his niques, much nearer in fact to an artist like
mind before he takes a photograph, while on Hamilton. The drawings and prints are by
other occasions, and this seems to be more comparison simpler, more anecdotal, two-
true of his early work, the photographs come dimensional, and hence more popular, and it
first. In either case Hockney seems to use is because of them that he is written about as
a 'success'.
Hamilton is much more obviously concerned
with the process of seeing. His first 'master-
piece' in this field is the Bing Crosby picture
and attendant variations. In addition there
are the paintings of Swingeing London and the
blow-ups of seaside postcards. These works are
fully discussed by Richard Morphet in the
excellent catalogue to the Tate exhibition and
there is no point in going into them here.
Suffice it to say that this group of pictures
shows all Hamilton's qualities at their best:
the mental alertness, the play between illusion
and reality, the mixture of techniques, the
delicate embellishment of materials, the am-
photography as an artist like Corot would use biguity of the original photographs them-
sketches made on the spot. It is as if photo- selves, the wit of the titles. It is often said that
graphy today were somehow more real than art today lacks mental nourishment and lacks
reality itself. For example, the painting of Ste the richness of meaning to be found in the old
Maxime is a subject made familiar, perhaps masters. Hamilton is the exception. To really
over-familiar, by the Impressionists, notably see his range as an artist it is best to see his
Monet. Monet would not have dreamt of work assembled together, and of few exhibi-
painting Ste Maxime from memory and a tions would one say, as of his at the Tate,
photograph. His whole career had been spent that it ought to be permanent. The Tate
in developing a vocabulary to render the would be the best place for this display.
physical act of looking at nature as immediate Hamilton, for all his apparent modernity, has
as possible. Hockney's painting, on the other his roots deep in the main tradition of British
hand, is a simplification of a photograph and European painting.
which is itself a simplification. In Plato's lan- I started by saying the very idea of writing
guage, he is not twice removed from the truth about Hockney and Hamilton in the same
but three or four times. And yet who is to say breath was ridiculous. On reflection I would
today which is the more real, the Monet or not put it so strongly. Both artists belong to
the Hockney ? the first generation of British mid-Atlantic
This playing with the process of seeing is painting. But Hamilton seems to me to have
common to a number of modern artists and it one foot on this shore and Hockney nowadays
crops up time and again in Hockney's one foot in America.
work—the swimming pool scenes with their IAN DUNLOP LI
stylized treatment of water and illusionistic
treatment of figures, for instance; the portraits,
where the heads appear painted from life and
the surrounding room from a mail-order cata-
logue; the joke treatment of past artistic
styles.
This use of differing ways of seeing—the frozen
photographic image, the painting from life,
the use of formal near-abstract simplifications
—gives Hockney's most recent work a cool,