Father of Pop Art Richard Hamilton dies, aged 89
Richard Hamilton, the British artist dubbed the "Father of Pop," has died at the age of 89, the Gagosian Gallery in London reported Tuesday.
London - Hamilton, who is regarded as a pioneer in the field of pop art, is best known for a 1956 collage Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? - featuring a bodybuilder and a tin of ham.
He also designed the plain white cover for the Beatles' White Album of 1968, and enjoyed retrospectives at galleries around the world.
Hamilton later became famous for his political images. His collage Shock and Awe, produced in 2007, featured former British prime minister Tony Blair, wearing a cowboy shirt, with guns and holsters.
Hamilton said he produced the image after he saw Blair "looking smug" after a consultations with former US president George W Bush on the Iraq war.
He was working on a major retrospective up until his death. The show was due to be seen in London, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Madrid next year.
The Gagosian Gallery said the art world had "lost one of its leading figures."
"Hamilton's fascination with the authenticity of the image in contemporary society, and the implication this has in political and moral terms, has held him at the vanguard of modern art," a statement said.
"His influence on subsequent generations of artists continues to be immeasurable," it said.
Hamilton, who was born in London in February 1922, studied at the Royal Academy and Slade School of Fine Art.
Nicholas Serota, the director of London's Tate galleries, Tuesday described Hamilton as "one of the most influential and distinctive artists of the postwar period."
The artist had been "greatly admired by his peers" - Andy Warhol and Germany's Joseph Beuys - for producing a series of paintings, drawings, prints and multiples dealing with the "themes of glamour, consumption, commodity and popular culture," said Serota.
