Kent State,

1970

A member of the Independent Group (1952–55), Richard Hamilton and his colleagues heralded the arrival of a new approach to art in the wake of World War II—an eclectic, interdisciplinary sensibility attuned to the vertiginous changes then taking place to the society, economy, and visual culture of Britain and beyond. Hamilton’s early work is indelibly associated with Pop art, a term introduced by his colleague Lawrence Alloway in 1958. As with other Pop artists, Hamilton utilized readymade images pilfered from mass media. The work here stems from a snapshot he took while watching a TV news report on the May 4, 1970, shooting of nine students at Kent State University by members of the National Guard. Hamilton translated the photograph into a haunting screenprint whose 5,000 impressions ensured its wide distribution. Ringed by a black border—a remnant of the television screen from which it was taken—this contemporary pietà asserts its identity as a televisual image, emphasizing the role TV had recently begun to play in the framing of public experience.