POP 1019 Tuesday 9 October 2012

Today's POP is Ashley at Church… Okay, at the National Gallery viewing the last work of the late, great Richard Hamilton.

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Hamilton, Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu – a painting in three parts, 2011 (printed 2012). Epson inkjet on Hewlett-Packard RHesolution canvas 112 x 176 cm (each variant) © Courtesy of the Estate of Richard Hamilton.

 

Everyone should see this show. Whatever I say after this can essentially be ignored. The public unveiling of Richard Hamilton's last work – he referred to it usually as 'The Balzac' – is a masterpiece by a modern Master.

 

 

Just go today or as soon as you can and view the triptych "Le Chef – d'oeuvre inconnu". It's a staggering work on many levels. If you've read (or now chose to read) Honore de Balzac's short story "The Unknown Masterpiece", concerning the artists Porbus, Poussin and Frenhofer you will love this work even more. If you visit the Louvre and the Prado and look at the self-portraits that Richard Hamilton sourced for this work you will be yet more entranced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a glimpse of this work in advance of its public unveiling and was so taken with it that I made a pilgrimage to 7 rue des Grands-Augustins, the setting of the Balzac tale, when at the Paris shows last week. Picasso was so taken with the suggestions of Balzac that he made his studio at this address and created a whole suite of etchings based on the story of "The Unknown Masterpiece".

 

This last Hamilton work could captivate you for many years. Indeed, it addresses a tale about a lifetime's futile study and myriad perplexing conceits. What did I most get from my viewing of these canvases at the National Gallery today? I looked again and again at Hamilton's marks in Biro on the left-hand canvas. Were they in the printing or hand-made? You see, I don't believe these were completely unfinished works. I think there's story telling within story telling going on here.

 

Balzac, as I remember, talks of 'The Masters Touch', the simple flourish of a great artist that can bring a painting alive. Richard Hamilton did his here in Biro. He was having a laugh. But he was also deadly serious, not least because he was facing his death.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Hamilton, Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu – a painting in three parts, 2011 (printed 2012). Epson inkjet on Hewlett-Packard RHesolution canvas 112 x 176 cm (each variant) © Courtesy of the Estate of Richard Hamilton.

 

 

This work ties up so many different strands of Richard Hamilton's incredible artistic output, a peerless multi-layered body of work that stretches from the Fifties. Poignantly, 'The Balzac' is printed on Hewlett-Packard RHesolution canvas. They should sell that as some kind of simple slogan T-shirt in the National Gallery gift shop. I'd buy a dozen.

 

So The Times on-line today give this show three stars and The Guardian give it a 'genius' Five. POP gives it four as the other late Hamilton works on show are appallingly cramped in their display and surely not reflecting the last wishes of Hamilton. The rest of this show was infinitely better displayed some years ago at the Venice Biennale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That said, there's some great, great paintings here. And you're left wondering… Was he a better print maker or painter? Did he fear paint somehow? What the hell is the deep (Duchampian) sex story that Hamilton privately traversed? Where does art end and life start (and vice-versa)?
 

 

It all comes back to 'The Balzac', though, the only nude that Hamilton ever painted with the female form lying down not walking. Just make your way straight to the end of this show and look at the main event. Eroticism, humanity, perfection, perspective, curvature, technology, mythology, masculinity, femininity, furnishings… and Biro on hi-tech canvas. It's all here and it's wonderfully free to the public as Richard Hamilton would have wished.

 

And to think tens of thousands would rather go pay silly money to queue at Frieze.

 

Curiouser and curiouser.
 

 

 

 

 

Richard Hamilton, Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu – a painting in three parts, 2011 (printed 2012). Epson inkjet on Hewlett-Packard RHesolution canvas 112 x 176 cm (each variant) © Courtesy of the Estate of Richard Hamilton.

 

 

 

Richard Hamilton: The Late Works is on at the National Gallery from 10 October to 13 January 2013.

 

 

nationalgallery.org.uk

Related Pops:

• POP 826 Weekend 11-12 February 2012
• POP 945 Weekend 7-8 July 2012

Related posts:

1. POP 1028 Friday 19 October 2012
2. POP 001/ Tuesday, 26 May 2009
3. POP 1026 Wednesday 17 October 2012
4. POP 726 Friday 14 October 2011
5. POP 1022 Friday 12 October 2012

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