Pop in the Age of Boom: Richard Hamilton’s ‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ by JOHN-PAUL STONARD

MEASURING BARELY ONE FOOT square, Richard Hamilton’s fame, however, the immediate origins of Hamilton’s collage Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? have remained obscure. The new archival and source material is one of the most celebrated images in twentieth-century presented in this article sheds light on these origins, address- British art (Figs.14 and 15). It was created for the catalogue ing problems surrounding the authorship of the work. Newly and used for one of the posters for the exhibition This is identified sources for various parts of the collage allow for a Tomorrow held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, dur- revised interpretation of its contents. ing August and September 1956. Collaged with images drawn The background of and preparations for the historic chiefly from American illustrated magazines, it has become exhibition This is Tomorrow are well known. In a context an emblem of the Age of Boom, the post-War consumer of enthusiasm for cross-disciplinary exhibitions of Con- culture of the late 1950s.1 It has also become a manifesto for structivist-inspired art and architecture,6 a group of young a movement. In one of the first accounts of British Pop art, artists, architects and critics met during early 1955 in the studio published in 1963, it was presented as a catalytic work, and the of the painter Adrian Heath and decided, after heated debate, next year was decreed ‘the first genuine work of Pop’.2 More on the basic format of their as yet untitled exhibition.7 Theo recently it has been compared with the Demoiselles d’Avignon, Crosby, who was at that moment the editor of Architectural has been hailed as ‘the starting point of planetary Pop Art’ and Design, headed the organisation committee. Eleven teams of as the ‘perfect Pop work’.3 John Russell’s description over three or four individuals were formed, each with the task of thirty years ago of the endless ‘pockets of meaning’ that can be constructing a display for the exhibition, which was to open on found in ‘this little picture’ remains true today.4 Above all, it 9th August the following year. Crosby approached Bryan was a startling prognosis of the use of comic books, tinned Robertson, the director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, who food and burlesque nudes that formed the iconography of Pop agreed to host the exhibition. The budget was minimal and, art, and of the widespread use by artists of the metonymic as preparations got underway, it was decided that each team language of advertising. Such a mythic status is all the more would design and print a poster and contribute six pages to remarkable for an object not originally intended for display the catalogue (Fig.16). Each was also required to subsidise the but as a design for lithographic reproduction.5 Despite this materials for its displays. From the outset the intentions were

For their help in the preparation of this article, I would like to thank Jo Baer, (20th October to 20th November 1964), to the American collector Ed Janss, Mary Banham, Stuart Blacklock (EMI Archive), Robert Cooper, Magda Cordell in 1964, for £320; London, Tate Gallery Archive (hereafter cited as TGA) McHale, Rita Donagh, Gerlinde Engelhardt (Kunsthalle Tübingen), Elisabeth Fair- 863/Hanover Gallery. The collage was to have been displayed in the exhibition Euro- man (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven), Tim Fogerty (Muscle Memory), pean drawings (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1966), organised by Mark Francis, Adrian Glew (Tate Archive), Graphic Imaging Technology, Brook- Lawrence Alloway. Alloway had written to Hamilton asking for four drawings that lyn, New York, Richard Hamilton, Rod Hamilton, Dian Hanson, Martin Harrison, had been displayed in Hamilton’s 1964 Hanover Gallery exhibition, but rejected Richard Hollis, Randolphe Hoppe (Jack Kirby Museum), Harry Mendryk, John Hamilton’s subsequent suggestion that Just what is it . . . should be included; L. McHale Jr., Richard Morphet, Petra Cerne Oven (University of Reading Depart- Alloway to R. Hamilton, 26th July 1965, Richard Hamilton archive (cited hereafter ment of Typography), Randall Scott (Michigan State University Libraries), Posy as RHA). It was then displayed in the exhibitions Pop Art, London (Hayward Gallery) Simmonds, Candy Stobbs (Whitechapel Art Gallery), Aurélie Verdier and Anna 1969; Richard Hamilton, London (Tate Gallery), Eindhoven (Stedelijk van Abbe- Yandell. Particular thanks go to Richard Hamilton for permission to cite from letters museum) and Bern (Kunsthalle) 1970; and Richard Hamilton, New York (Solomon R. in his archive, and to the Gagosian Gallery, London. Guggenheim Museum) 1973. The collage was sold on 20th August 1974 to the 1 The phrase was first used in Queen, 15th September 1959. German collector Georg Zundel, and simultaneously became part of the collection 2 J. Reichardt: ‘Pop Art and After’, Art International 7, 2 (25th February 1963) of the Kunsthalle Tübingen. Thereafter, it was shown in the exhibitions: Richard pp.42–47, esp. p.43; M. Amaya: Pop as Art. A Survey of the New Super Realism, Hamilton Studies – Studien 1937–1977, Bielefeld (Kunsthalle), Tübingen (Kunsthalle) London 1965, p.32. and Göttingen (Kunstverein) 1978; Westkunst: zeitgenössische Kunst seit 1939, Cologne 3 W. Guadagnini: ‘Coincidences’, in M. Livingstone and W. Guadagnini, eds.: exh. (Messegelände, Rheinhallen) 1981; Modern dreams. The rise and fall of Pop, New York cat. Pop Art UK. British Pop Art 1956–1972, Modena (Palazzo Santa Margherita; (Clocktower Gallery) 1987; and High & low: modern art and popular culture, New York Palazzina dei Giardini) 2004, pp.37–41, esp. p.37. (Museum of Modern Art), Chicago (Art Institute) and Los Angeles (Museum of 4 J. Russell: ‘Introduction’, in exh. cat. Richard Hamilton, New York (Solomon R. Contemporary Art) 1990–91. A photograph taken by Hamilton at the time of the Guggenheim Museum) 1973, pp.10–11. 1987 Clocktower Gallery exhibition has been substituted for the original collage in a 5 The collage was first displayed as a work of art, while still in the collection of the number of subsequent exhibitions. artist, in the exhibition Nieuwe Realisten at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (24th 6 A. Fowler: ‘A forgotten British Constructivist group: the London branch of June to 30th August 1964), the catalogue to which included a reprint of Jasia Groupe Espace, 1953–59’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 148 (2007), pp.173–79. Reichardt’s essay, cited at note 2 above, and a large reproduction. It was to a certain 7 D. Robbins, ed.: exh. cat. The Independent Group: Postwar Britain and the Aesthetics extent owing to the enthusiasm of the curator and writer Walter Hopps that the of Plenty, Hanover (Hood Museum of Art), London (ICA), Los Angeles (Museum collage acquired an independent life: he possessed a colour slide of the work which of Contemporary Art) and Berkeley (University Art Museum) 1990–91, pp.30 and he used in lectures in the late 1950s, and it was through his agency that the work was 135–36. sold, on the occasion of Hamilton’s exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, London

the burlington magazine • cxlix • september 2007 607 POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM

vague – an exhibition of the most forward-looking tendencies, engaging directly with the contemporary world. Although this impulse arose in part from the dynamic think-tank atmosphere of the Independent Group at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the exhibition was for the most part defined by contem- porary British attitudes to Constructivism. Both constituents were founded on ideas that enabled cross-disciplinary discus- sion between architects, artists and philosophers. Among the eleven teams, Group Two comprised the architect John Voelcker and the Independent Group mem- bers John McHale and Richard Hamilton. Also important for Group Two’s contribution were Terry Hamilton (Hamilton’s wife), the Hungarian painter Magda Cordell and her husband, Frank Cordell, a musical director at EMI. Anne Massey has recounted how the Cordells, McHale and Lawrence Alloway formed a caucus within the Independent Group.8 Although Voelcker played an important role, the combined interests of McHale and Hamilton largely determined Group Two’s contribution. McHale and Alloway had taken over con- venorship of the Independent Group towards the end of 1954 and reoriented its discussions towards American popular culture, advertising, Hollywood cinema and science fiction.9 Members gave talks on their particular interests, including an influential address by Reyner Banham on car styling.10 Hamilton’s contribution dealt with American domestic appli- ances: ‘I was fascinated by “white goods” as they were called, washing machines and dishwashers and refrigerators – not 16. ‘12 Posters for This is Tomorrow’, reproduced in Architectural Design (September simply as objects in themselves as designed objects, but also in 1956), p.304. Included are the posters designed by John McHale (top row, second the ways in which they were presented to the audience’.11 from left) and Richard Hamilton (top row, third from left) for Group Two. Eduardo Paolozzi’s use of advertising images from American magazines was formative and fed into a general and collabo- discussions, McHale left for a period of study at the Yale rative interest in such material. ‘Tear sheets’ of advertising School of Fine Art, New Haven, returning only at the end of 14. Just what is it that makes images were passed around, and ‘tackboards’ of assorted adver- May 1956. ‘We could only correspond by letter’, Hamilton today’s home so different, so 12 appealing?, by Richard tising imagery were common in artists’ studios and homes. remembered, ‘and their tone became increasingly acrimo- Hamilton. 1956. Collage of Hamilton has described the enthusiasm with which Group nious. Finally, we were no longer friends’.15 printed materials and Two began preparations for the exhibition and the impor- Those letters that have survived from the correspondence gouache, 25.7 by 24.5 cm. (Kunsthalle Tübingen, tance of the interest he and McHale shared in ‘Pop Art, shed light on the evolution of the collage and offer some Sammlung Zundel). pop music, cinema and all the other things you see in a list clarification of its recently contested attribution and status when Pop Art is mentioned’.13 Group Two was unique in as a collaborative work. The focus of this contention is the conceiving its contribution as a distillation of the ideas trunk of American ephemera – magazines, advertisements developed in the Independent Group – before it ceased to and records – collected by McHale during his stay in New function in spring 1955. As it turned out, their show-stealing Haven which were used by Hamilton, at least in part, for display, an ‘ebullient carnival piece’ according to Alloway, the construction of the collage. It has been suggested that was dramatically different from any other stand.14 The this implies a collaboration and that McHale may even have themes of optical illusion and popular culture were combined supplied a design.16 in a display surrounding a ‘fun-house’ structure which incor- Of all the members of the Independent Group, McHale porated a jukebox. The eventual success of their contribution appears at that moment as the one most engaged with the followed severe difficulties that arose during the period collage medium, American advertising and the impact of of preparation. In August 1955, after a few preliminary new domestic technical appliances. His interest in American

8 A. Massey: The Independent Group. Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain 1945–59, 14 L. Alloway: ‘The Development of British Pop’, in L. Lippard, ed.: Pop Art, 15. Catalogue for the Manchester and New York 1995, p.79. London 1966, pp.27–67, esp. p.39. 9 15 exhibition This is Ibid., pp.77–93. Hamilton, op. cit. (note 13), p.62. 10 16 Tomorrow, Whitechapel ‘Borax, or the Thousand Horse-Power Mink’ was given on 4th March 1955. The standard attribution is given by Massey, op. cit. (note 8), p.118: ‘A collage Art Gallery, 1956, showing 11 ‘Richard Hamilton in conversation with Michael Craig-Martin’, in A. Searle: drawn from American mass media sources, mainly supplied by John McHale as two-page spread designed Talking Art 1, London 1993, pp.67–83, esp. p.73. a result of his visit to Yale’. A more recent controversy concerning the authorship of by Richard Hamilton, 12 B. Colomina: ‘Friends of the Future: A Conversation with Peter Smithson’, the collage was summarised by Jeremy Hunt in his article ‘This is Tomorrow including the collage October 94 (2000), pp.3–30, esp. p.9. 1956–2006’, State of Art (September/October 2006), pp.24–25. The debate has Just what is it . . .. 13 R. Hamilton: ‘Pop Daddy’, Tate Magazine 4 (March/April 2003), pp.60–62. continued on the website Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org).

608 september 2007 • cxlix • the burlington magazine the burlington magazine • cxlIx • september 2007 609 POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM

magazines can be seen from his collection of ‘tear sheets’ from magazines reaching back as far as 1931.17 It is clear that he was a pivotal figure for that small number of British intellectuals who took American popular culture seriously, but his later emigration to the United States has meant that his contri- bution has been somewhat overlooked. Hamilton himself later recorded that ‘John McHale’s catholic intellect applied itself with presbyterial rigour to everything and generously distributed the fruits of his enquiry to the flock. When his bumper bundle from a first visit to the United States was ceremonially presented at the ICA, the first Elvis Presley records to land on these shores were protectively interleaved with copies of MAD magazine so that no one knew what was ballast and what cargo’.18 The German art historian Jürgen Jacobs has suggested that McHale’s Independent Group 18. Shoe-Life Stories, by John McHale. c.1955. lecture ‘Technology at Home’ influenced Hamilton’s deci- Double-page spread from collage book, mixed media, 19 25.1 by 41.5 cm. (John McHale archive, sion to include an image of a woman vacuuming. In his Yale Center for British Art, New Haven). famous letter to Peter and Alison Smithson, which provided one of the first definitions of Pop culture, Hamilton enumer- Tomorrow, as well as McHale’s own wide interests. Writing had been out of touch: ‘Had hoped to hear from you by now ates those events of the ‘post war years’ which he felt were at the beginning of November 1955, McHale describes the re clump’ (‘clump’ was the term used by Group Two to refer important, listing McHale’s ‘Ad image research’ alongside excitement of studying in the Yale School of Fine Art to the individual teams).31 The content of Group Two’s the work of Paolozzi and the Smithsons.20 with such luminaries as Norman Ives, Herbert Matter and, contribution had yet to be finalised, Hamilton requesting Furthermore, McHale was one of the leading exponents of above all, Josef Albers as faculty members.27 The interests he suggestions and material from McHale, and adding: ‘You can collage within the ICA milieu. His works were included in expresses in this and subsequent letters are largely concerned see that it is imperative that one or the other of us starts on this the exhibition Collages and Objects, organised by Alloway and with perception, visual illusions and science fiction. ‘Main very very soon so do let me know your view immediately’. designed by McHale himself, held at the ICA during October kick now is perception via [Adelbert] Ames etc coupled with Hamilton signed off: ‘I shall be seeing Magda next week I and November 1954. This important exhibition showed Joe’s [Josef Albers] field of colour vibration’. McHale’s dis- presume and she, no doubt, will have information as to the works by Picasso, Braque, Schwitters and others alongside tance from the evolving organisation of the exhibition, a date of your return’. Magda Cordell, who was having an affair collages by members of the Independent Group, principally problem compounded by the wait required for airmail, is with McHale (for whom she eventually left Frank Cordell), Paolozzi and Nigel Henderson. Significantly, Hamilton was 17. Machine made America II, by John McHale. 1956. Cover for Architectural shown in a letter sent around mid-January in which he asks visited him in New Haven from the beginning of February to Review (24th May 1957). not involved. The press release for the exhibition describes it Richard and Terry Hamilton if the space allocated to the around mid- to late March. On 18th March Voelcker had as part of the ‘collage revival’ in post-War Britain.21 A further newly formed Group Twelve of Alloway, Toni del Renzio informed the Hamiltons by letter that McHale was to send exhibition of eleven collages by McHale was held in the food advertisements.24 The collages he exhibited in the ICA and Geoffrey Holroyd would reduce the space allocated to material for the catalogue ‘with Magda when she returns’. At library of the ICA shortly after This is Tomorrow closed. In his library in 1955 depended, Alloway wrote, on a ‘capacious Group Two.28 He also refers to the ‘New Haven version of around the same time, McHale wrote to Hamilton agreeing short catalogue introduction to the exhibition, Alloway Dubuffetesque human contour’, and appeared ‘democrati- the I.G.’, which ‘flourishes or rather did flourish last term . . .’. to design the poster, but requesting that Hamilton execute compares McHale’s collages to those of Schwitters and Ernst cally Arcimboldesque’.25 Alongside this abstract manner, In London pressure was beginning to mount for Hamil- his design in England.32 He also confirmed that his materials and also draws attention to McHale’s interest in American other works are based on typographic photomontage. His ton and Voelcker to finalise details for Group Two’s and commentary would reach Hamilton via Magda who magazines, particularly their advertisements for food, with most innovative works in the medium are his collage books, contribution, in particular for the poster and the catalogue was returning from her visit to New Haven: ‘In the next ‘visions of popular appetite, chocolate landscape cake, salad for instance Shoe-Life Stories, made after April 1955, which which were due on 1st May. Voelcker sent details of two days following this you will have my notes on structure sculpture, solid-gold chicken’.22 use varying page sizes and other devices to create constantly requirements for the catalogue and poster to both Hamilton of John V. [the central display of the Group Two space], The types of collage McHale was making at this moment changing juxtapositions of images drawn from magazines and McHale in mid-February, following a meeting of catalogue, comments, suggestions for images etc. etc’. These show nevertheless the influence of abstraction rather than of and newspapers, in particular headlines and other cut-out the organising committee that he had attended two days materials were accompanied by a letter and a mock-up for the the naturalistic space used in Just what is it . . .. As Banham text (Fig.18).26 Together with two other books made around earlier.29 At this meeting the designer Edward Wright had catalogue, sent to the Cordells’ flat in Cleveland Square, pointed out, McHale’s clear interest on his return from the same time, Shoe-Life Stories has yet to receive the critical presented a mock-up of the catalogue, and the amount Paddington, where McHale also kept a studio.33 Notes and a America was to ‘produce a mechanistic figure’, in particular attention it deserves. of pages allocated to each group was decided.30 Wright was mock-up of the layout for the catalogue by McHale (Fig.19) that of a robot.23 His Machine made America II (Fig.17) designed Banham’s and Alloway’s comments are borne out by also to design the posters, and the requirements for each accompanying this letter made clear his attitude towards the for the front cover of Architectural Review (24th May 1957) the content of letters from McHale to Richard and Terry group were similarly confirmed. catalogue as largely visual–scientific, suggesting pictorial use was typical of this kind of work, showing the influence of Art Hamilton sent from America during late 1955 and early 1956. The deadline was emphasised by Hamilton in a letter to of the equation E = MC 2, and also the standard diagram of Brut mixed with an interest in robotics, science fiction and These further illuminate the intellectual background to This is McHale towards the end of March, indicating that McHale ‘sense extension’, derived from a book by E.W. Meyers, a

17 This collection is now in the archive of the Yale Center for British Art, New ikon 2’, ibid. (March 1959). world of infra-grilled steak, pre-mixed cake, dream-kitchens, dream-cars, machine- 30 Edward Wright (1912–88) taught an experimental typography workshop at the Haven (hereafter cited as YCBA). 21 Press release for Collages and Objects, dated 8th October 1954; TGA, 955.1.12.61 tools, power-mixers, parkways, harbours, ticker-tape, spark-plugs and electronics’; Central School of Art from 1950 to 1955, and then taught at the Royal College of Art. 18 C. Kotic, J. McHale, L. Alloway, R. Banham and R. Hamilton: exh. cat. The 2/32. The Architectural Review 121, 7 (24th May 1957), p.293. He was an influential figure in the use of modernist typography and graphic design. Expendable Ikon: Works by John McHale, Buffalo (Albright-Knox Art Gallery) 1984, p.47. 22 L. Alloway: ‘Introduction’, exh. cat. John McHale Collages, London (ICA) 1956. 25 Alloway, op. cit. (note 14), p.35. 31 Richard Hamilton to John McHale, undated letter (mid- to late March 1956); 19 J. Jacobs: Die Entwicklung der Pop Art in England von ihren Anfängen bis 1957, 23 Kotic et al., op. cit. (note 18), p.40. 26 ‘Shoe-Life Stories McHale no.2A’; YCBA. RHA. Frankfurt 1986, p.90; J. McHale: ‘Technology in the Home’, Ark 19, (March 1957), 24 A comment on the image appeared on the colophon page: ‘The cover personage, 27 John McHale to Richard and Terry Hamilton, 15th November 1955; RHA. 32 John McHale to Richard Hamilton, undated letter (mid-March 1956); RHA. pp.24–27. by John McHale, with the tetragram of power – Neutral, Drive, Low, Reverse – 28 John McHale to Richard and Terry Hamilton, undated (after 5th January 1956); 33 The letter can be dated by McHale’s reference to the fact that it was written 20 Richard Hamilton to Peter and Alison Smithson, 16th January 1957 (RHA). graven on his heart, was assembled from typical fragments of the cultural complex he RHA. during the spring recess of the Yale School of Fine Art (21st March to 1st April). The seminal statement of McHale’s ideas was contained in two articles: ‘The also symbolizes; Machine Made America. The source of the material was one of 29 John Voelcker to Richard and Terry Hamilton, 16th February 1956 (copy sent to For these and all subsequent term dates, see Bulletin of Yale University. University expendable ikon 1’, Architectural Design 29 (February 1959), and ‘The expendable America’s favourite flattering mirrors, coloured magazine illustrations, and reflects a John McHale); RHA. catalogue number for the year 1955–1956, New Haven 1955.

610 september 2007 • cxlix • the burlington magazine the burlington magazine • cxlIx • september 2007 611 POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM

for this exhibition I am off the direct photo-image’, he writes Command of 1948, which reprinted numerous contemporary in the same letter. advertisements, including a satire on the ‘Overgadgeted Although this letter arrived around the same time as Magda kitchen’.38 Although no material from the magazine was used Cordell’s return from New Haven, it is unclear whether it had in Just what is it . . ., the indirect influence of MAD suggests been posted or was brought back by her. What is certain is that a more ironic take on advertising culture than has previously she conveyed the trunk containing McHale’s collection of been ascribed to the collage. American ephemera, Elvis Presley records and copies of MAD McHale’s grudging acceptance of the ‘crazy collagist’ magazine.35 This is an important point – as the deadline for the approach suggests that he too may have wished for a more material for the catalogue, including Just what is it . . ., was serious approach both to the catalogue and the exhibition, the 1st May, it would have been impossible for Hamilton to have type of earnest constructivism that characterised many of used material from the trunk if McHale had brought it back the other This is Tomorrow collaborations. Following on from himself on 31st May. The collage was therefore made between his exasperated response to Hamilton’s apparent change of Magda Cordell’s return at the end of March and 1st May. approach, he noted: ‘Fine – I include some you may use’. This Aware of this impending deadline, Hamilton wrote to may well indicate that McHale sent tear sheets or cut-outs to McHale at the end of April with the news that a photo-collage be used for the collage at this point, which would have arrived was to be included in the catalogue. This letter is untraced but before the deadline of 1st May. In response to McHale’s can be inferred from McHale’s response. In an undated letter letter, Terry Hamilton wrote an angry reply, dated 1st May, 20. Photograph of an East End shop front, by Nigel Henderson. 1949–53. sent towards the end of April, shortly before the end of the pointing out that it was McHale rather than Hamilton who Reproduced in V. Walsh: Nigel Henderson. Parallel of Life and Art, London 2001, p.52. spring term for the Yale School of Fine Arts, he complains had ‘gone all highbrow’ and rejected the idea of collage, that the Hamiltons had ‘held their noses at the thought of rather than vice versa, and also that ‘Richard has been hard at a psychological fact pleasure helps your disposition, used the April collage’ during the preparations, wanting to retain an aura of it getting the thing produced’.39 Interestingly, she goes on to 1947 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal; other collages show seriousness for the catalogue. ‘Now when I fall over backward describe the collage as ‘rationalised mad – a room containing comics such as Hi-Ho and Breezy Stories. American comics trying to be serious you tell me you “crazy housed” my categories on the list Richard sent you earlier’. were widely available in London, as can be seen from Hen- suggestions, and are working a la Mad [that is, in the style of To what extent the material McHale included in his letter, derson’s photograph taken around 1950 (Fig.20) of an East MAD magazine]. Big Deal. Put me down for some lessons or material from the trunk, was used for Hamilton’s collage is End shop front, displaying the sign ‘Stop! Here for American when I get back, I’d like to be a crazy collagist too . . .’. still open to question, and is dealt with in more detail in the Comics. Biggest selection in East London’. Other well- McHale’s exasperated response reflects Hamilton’s lack of individual cases discussed below. American publications were known outlets for comics and magazines were the newsagents interest in collage before this date, but also indicates that the widely available in London, and had been collected by and S. Solosy Ltd., in the Charing Cross Road, and Moroni’s idea to include such a collage ‘a la Mad’ came from Hamilton exchanged among artists for a number of years. Referring news-stand in Old Compton Street. News-stand displays of himself, after seeing copies of the magazine that had arrived to eye-witness accounts, John Russell has described the magazines were themselves an object of fascination, offering a in the collection of material brought back by Magda Cordell ‘collective delight’ with which British artists greeted such sudden frieze of saturated colour to the post-War flâneur.43 at the end of March. Unlike more popular titles, MAD was Americana: ‘Painters pounced on the advertising pages of Further source material may have been found in the flat of not then available in England. McCall’s Magazine the way Dyce pounced on Raphael when Frank and Magda Cordell at 52 Cleveland Square, where Hamilton’s interest in MAD is of some significance for the he was asked to paint a Madonna’.40 Hamilton has described Hamilton made the collage with the assistance of Terry 19. Suggested design for the Group Two contribution to the catalogue of This is origins of Just what is it . . .. Although it was a leading title in the importance of his visits with Henderson and Paolozzi to Hamilton and Magda Cordell, recently returned from Tomorrow, by John McHale. (Richard Hamilton archive). the late 1950s, on a par with household names such as Life and the reading room of the American Embassy in Grosvenor America. According to Hamilton, the collage was produced Playboy, MAD was unique in offering a critical position on Square, London, where the latest magazines were available, in a single morning, after Hamilton had provided Terry and British expert on cybernetics who had given an address to 1950s consumerism, exposing techniques of manipulation, and direct comparisons could be made between English and Magda with a list of the things that he wanted the collage to the Independent Group in March 1955 on the theme of often with the most biting parodies of advertising methods American publications: ‘There was Picture Post, but that didn’t represent, and they retrieved them from the magazines avail- ‘Probability and Information Theory and Their Application and media outlets. The April 1956 issue, for example, ran a have the glamour of Life magazine in the post-war years’, able in the flat.44 Hamilton’s iconographic prescription shows to the Visual Arts’.34 His suggestions for the remaining pages spoof advertisement for ‘Marlbrando’ cigarettes, ‘The Trade- Hamilton later recalled.41 An exhibition of photographs from the dual interest in science and popular culture that had were generalised combinations of text and symbols ‘to mark of Two-Fisted He-Men’.36 McHale recognised the Life magazine held at the ICA in early 1952 attests not only to marked the Independent Group: ‘Man, Woman, Humanity, approximate [the] human image’. Apart from his preoccu- importance of MAD in the second part of his essay on ‘The the importance but the availability of the title in London.42 History, Food, Newspaper, Cinema, TV, Telephone, pation with perception and visual illusion, the only reference expendable ikon’, published in 1959, and used pages from the International editions of certain publications were also avail- Comics (picture information), Words (textual information), to popular advertising material was the possibility of using magazine in a design for an unrealised collage book made at able, as Paolozzi’s 1952 collage Keep it simple, keep it sexy, Tape recording (aural information), Cars, Domestic appli- ‘very big posters or billboards which when cut down may about the same time.37 He describes it as ‘dadaist satirical’, and keep it sad demonstrated, showing the front of the ‘Atlantic ances, Space’.45 Terry’s and Magda’s assistance was clearly provide images’, giving Baked Beans posters as a suggestion, as representing ‘a kind of feedback control mechanism’ to the Overseas Edition’ of TIME, The Weekly Newsmagazine. For important in determining the choice of imagery for the and also material culled from science fiction sources. Despite mass media message with reference to Marshal McLuhan. Pre- his use of popular imagery drawn from magazines and comics, collage; such a modus operandi was entirely in keeping with this, McHale’s ideas for This is Tomorrow were defined by vious commentaries on the Independent Group have focused Paolozzi is one of the most prominent forerunners of the division of domestic labour that so fascinated Hamilton in scientific diagrams rather than photography – ‘at the moment on the influence of Sigfried Giedion’s Mechanization takes Just what is it . . .. The 1948 collage from his ‘Bunk’ series, It’s the advertising material of the day.46 Whereas later works by

34 Massey, op. cit. (note 8), p.91. and MAD collaborator Will Elder. 955/1/12/37. A further exhibition at the ICA during September 1956, concurrent clearly fond of tabulating imagery in this manner, producing similar lists of ‘Imagery’ 35 In conversation with Michael Craig-Martin, Hamilton suggests that McHale 37 ‘Unfinished Collage Book Project. McHale no.14C’, by John McHale, rubber- with This is Tomorrow at the Whitechapel, displayed cartoons from the New Yorker and ‘Perception’ for the Group Two display at This is Tomorrow, and also in the ‘returned with a box of exotic things he had acquired there’. Evidently this could stamped ‘13 November 1959’ on reverse; YCBA. magazine by artists such as James Thurber and Saul Steinberg. It was organised by the letter addressed to the Smithsons in January 1957, often taken as a manifesto for Pop not have been the case if the materials were used for the production of the collage; 38 S. Giedion: Mechanization takes Command. A Contribution to Anonymous History, American Federation of Arts and travelled to Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast; art in Britain. Copies of these lists can be found in Hamilton’s personal archive and see Searle, op. cit. (note 11), pp.67–83, esp. p.74. This error is repeated in many New York 1948, p.580; Robbins, op. cit. (note 7), p.57. TGA 955.1.12.80. are cited in ibid., pp.22 and 28. accounts of preparations for the exhibition; see, for example, C. Stephens and K. 39 Terry Hamilton to John McHale, 1st May 1956; RHA. 43 Particular thanks to Magda Cordell McHale for information on this topic; 46 For the association of mass culture with femininity and its uncritical reflection Stout: ‘This Was Tomorrow’, exh. cat. Art & The 60s. This Was Tomorrow, London 40 J. Russell: ‘Introduction’, in S. Gablik and J. Russell: Pop Art Redefined, London conversation with the present writer, 4th July 2007. in the work of many Pop artists, see C. Whiting: A Taste for Pop. Pop Art, Gender (Tate Gallery) 2004, p.11. 1969, p.33. 44 Richard Hamilton in conversation with the present writer, 7th February 2007. and Consumer Culture, Cambridge 1997, which contains a full bibliography of this 36 Of particular note was MAD 22 (April 1955), the ‘Special Art Issue’, which traced 41 Searle, op. cit. (note 11), p.70. 45 The list is reprinted in R. Hamilton: Collected Words 1953–1982, London 1982, subject. the fictional career of the artist ‘Bill “Chicken Fat” Elder’, based on the illustrator 42 Memorable photographs from Life Magazine opened on 6th March 1952; TGA p.24. There is no copy of this list in Hamilton’s personal archive. Hamilton was

612 september 2007 • cxlix • the burlington magazine the burlington magazine • cxlIx • september 2007 613 POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM

general tone of the exhibition: was it to be serious-scientific (Fig.23). Armstrong had been pioneers in advertising since or MAD-ironic? There was little question of individual credit 1917, their products appearing regularly in leading American for contributions either in the catalogue or in the display, magazines.49 This advertisement, which constituted the basis and it was perhaps on this basis that Group Two was in fact for Just what is it . . . and provides a large amount of the able to produce its historic contribution. Nevertheless, there imagery in the final collage, would have appealed to Hamil- seems little reason to suspect that McHale was responsible ton as it was almost the same size as the catalogue and, as a for Just what is it . . ., other than supplying essential imagery cover rather than an inside page, it presented a relatively stur- from magazines, both in the trunk and in a separate letter, dy support on which to attach further elements. Although the sent, with grudging acceptance of the ‘Mad collage’ idea, just flooring is only partially exposed in the room, the Royelle in time for the deadline. The group nevertheless continued to Linoleum is central, appearing rather as an empty stage wait- collaborate. McHale in fact designed a separate poster for ing to be filled.50 In particular the first line of the advertising Group Two (Fig.16) which Hamilton executed in the typo- copy printed below the images clinched the choice: ‘Just graphic department of Newcastle upon Tyne University, what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ where he was teaching during the period in which the exhi- This text was cut out and used as a caption for Just what is 21. This is Tomorrow, perspective of exhibition, by Richard Hamilton. 1956. bition was being prepared. McHale was evidently pleased it . . ., displayed on the facing page of the Whitechapel Collage and ink on paper, 30.5 by 47 cm. (Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart). with the results, which he received in early May, a few weeks catalogue (Fig.15). Although Hamilton has described coming before his departure from America. He wrote to thank across the text after he had made the collage, cut off from its Hamilton for having sent a copy of the poster and adds: original source in ‘some picture past recall’, in fact text and ‘Your [Hamilton’s] comment “that the poster looks as if you image were reunited. had a hand in it, and the catalogue myself”, is excellent and The Ladies’ Home Journal was certainly not unknown in completely in the tradition of our section!!’48 As it transpired, Britain at the time: Peter Smithson describes both this and Group Two was to contribute two posters to the exhibition: the Woman’s Home Companion being sent to Britain during Hamilton realised the potential of the ‘Mad collage’ he the War.51 Alison Smithson took clippings from the journal, had produced, and used it to produce a second poster to use and the type of advertisements the Smithsons found within alongside McHale’s (Fig.16). directly influenced their important essay ‘But Today We Hamilton had in fact made two other collages relating to the Collect Ads’, published just after This is Tomorrow closed, in exhibition. A perspective visualisation of the Group Two which they described the ‘magical [. . .] technical virtuosity’ of installation was made to illustrate a feature on the exhibition in contemporary advertising. A short list of magazine sources at 23. Advertisement for Armstrong Royal Floors. Reproduced in Ladies’ Home the issue of Architectural Design for September 1956 (Fig.21). the end of their article suggested that the Ladies’ Home Journal Journal (June 1955). This collage clearly shows the optical illusion on one wall, was by far the chief source for advertisements for their facing the popular culture mural, a Kia-Ora bottle (replaced inquiry.52 Alongside the Saturday Evening Post, also published in the final display with an inflatable Guinness bottle) and a by Curtis Publications, it was unrivalled in the quality of its one hundred miles. This is one of the few images that can jukebox, while the ‘fun-house’ structure shows an enlarged colour reproductions and generous format. Both titles were with some degree of certainty be traced to McHale’s archive, photograph of spaghetti and meatballs, indicating a space printed using offset lithography, resulting in a remarkable which contains two copies of the double-page advertisement Hamilton had reserved for McHale, and the large labelled range and depth of colour and a clarity of photographic (taken from Life, 5th September 1955),56 one of which is miss- head – here Pierre Mendès-France, replaced in the final instal- reproduction by contrast with the more smudgy primitive ing its left page, the source of the section of the image that 22. See, hear, smell, touch, by Richard Hamilton. 1956. Collage, 21 by 22.1 cm. lation with a photographically enlarged image of a similar letterpress that was used for magazines such as Picture Post in Hamilton used in the collage (Fig.24). The image probably (Museum Ludwig, Cologne). ‘labelled head’ collage, this time featuring President Tito. This England. For Richard Hoggart, the newer style of journals refers to ‘Space’ on Hamilton’s list of subjects, although second collage, See, hear, smell, touch (Fig.22), which was also compared with the older ones were ‘rather like the latest knowledge of the image shows that it might more accurately used in the exhibition catalogue, relates to Just what is it . . . synthetic cocktail to a glass of not-very-strong beer’.53 New represent ‘Humanity’. Hamilton have been served by detailed expositions, chiefly by both in format and by the use of text labels. The three collages, types of food advertising, emphasising particularly a type of With the ceiling fixed, the rest of the stage machinery and the artist himself, the collaborative circumstances in which all now in museum collections in Germany, form a coherent salacious tomato-red hue, led to the phrase ‘lick the page’ mag- dramatis personae could be installed. Fulfilling the criteria Just what is it . . . was made have meant that its origins have group that marks a pivotal moment in Hamilton’s career. azines.54 Such magazines were ‘Paradise Regained’, according ‘Cinema’, the pastoral view through the window in the remained vague and often erroneously explained.47 This point Against this background, a detailed examination of Just what to Banham: ‘Remember we had spent our teenage years original was obliterated by a reproduction of a well-known is substantiated by Hamilton’s often-cited observation that the is it . . . and its sources can be conducted. The perspectival and surviving the horrors and deprivations of a six-year war. For photograph of the Warner Cinema, Broadway, on the open- title of the collage was discovered on a cut-out scrap when the luminous coherence of the interior presented suggests that a us, the fruits of peace had to be tangible, preferably edible’.55 ing night in 1927 of Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer, starring collage had been completed. As is made clear below, Hamil- single image underlies the scene. This indeed is the case: the Among the first images that Hamilton attached to the Al Jolson.57 Hamilton very carefully recreated the effect of ton was in fact reuniting the text with the advertising image image was taken from the June 1955 issue of the Ladies’ Home Armstrong advertisement was the view of the Earth – a window by the addition of a window bar down the centre of a domestic interior that forms the basis of the collage. Journal, which carried on the inside cover an advertisement for not from a satellite, as the image might suggest, but from and at the top, using an opaque pigment, probably gouache. The disagreement between McHale and the Hamiltons was the Pennsylvania-based company Armstrong Floors, showing an aerial camera that exaggerated the Earth’s curvature: the The theme of entertainment was continued to the right not about the authorship of the collage, but rather about the a bright interior fitted with ‘Armstrong Royelle Linoleum’ picture comprises many photographs taken from a height of with the addition of the television. This was taken from an

47 For Hamilton’s descriptions, see R. Hamilton: ‘An exposition of $he’, in idem, 50 The collage has been described as a ‘stage set of modernity, a showroom filled 52 A. Smithson and P. Smithson: ‘But Today We Collect Ads’, Ark 18 (November broadcast in the early 1960s, broadcast costs were still prohibitively high; see op. cit. (note 45), pp.34–39; Cf. also idem: ‘Hommage à Chysler Corp’, in Architectural with up-to-date things. . .’; T. Lawson: ‘Bunk: Eduardo Paolozzi and the Legacy 1956), pp.49–50. Peterson, op. cit. (note 51), p.37. Design (March 1958); idem: ‘Urbane Image’, Living Arts (London) 1963. of the Independent Group’, in L. Alloway et al.: exh. cat. Modern Dreams. The Rise 53 R. Hoggart: The Uses of Literacy, London 1986 (1st ed. 1957), p.222. Hoggart was 55 R. Banham: Fathers of Pop, revised transcript cited in Massey, op. cit. (note 8), p.84. 48 John McHale to Richard and Terry Hamilton, undated letter; RHA. and Fall of Pop, New York (Clocktower Gallery) 1987, pp.18–29, esp. p.25. referring to popular publications in England, but his remark is equally applicable to 56 John McHale archive, YCBA, Box 2. 49 P.H. Simpson: ‘Comfortable, Durable, and Decorative: Linoleum’s Rise and 51 B. Colomina: ‘Friends of the Future: A Conversation with Peter Smithson’, developments in America. 57 Hamilton has described seeing this film in London shortly after its release as the Fall from Grace’, APT Bulletin (1999), pp.17–24. Coincidentally, the Armstrong October 94 (2000), pp.3–30, esp. p.11. In 1957 the Ladies’ Home Journal had 54 Many thanks to Posy Simmonds for this information. In the new age of market ‘high-point’ of his childhood; conversation with the present writer, 25th June Cork Company Ltd., a British subsidiary of Armstrong Floors, placed a full-page a circulation of 5,449,000, significantly more than its nearest rival McCall’s; see research and advertising, four-colour reproduction gave magazines a distinct 2007. advertisement in the catalogue for This is Tomorrow. T. Peterson: Magazines in the Twentieth Century, Urbana 1964, p.190. advantage over television advertising. Although a few colour programmes were

614 september 2007 • cxlix • the burlington magazine the burlington magazine • cxlIx • september 2007 615 POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM

24. ‘100 Mile High Portrait of Earth’, double-page feature published in Life (5th September 1955). 27. Advertisement for Ford Fairlane. Reproduced in Fortune magazine (February 1955). 26. Advertisement for Young Romance 26 (1949), included in Young Love 15 (1950), advertisement for Stromberg-Carlson televisions reproduced p.23. (Collection of Harry Mendryk; © Joe Simon and Jack Kirby). in the issue of Life for 10th January 1955 (Fig.25).58 Curiously, the image shown on the screen of a woman telephoning has been cut out and then put back. The most likely explanation is that the excision was made by Terry Hamilton and Magda Paolozzi in his collage I was a rich man’s plaything (1947) slightly smaller and larger versions appeared in Fortune Cordell when the material was gathered, and later replaced which inspired numerous imitators. As has often been magazine and Holiday in February and May of 1955, and in by Hamilton. By affixing the television over part of the pointed out, Hamilton’s use of the comic cover, drawn by the February 1955 issue of National Geographic (Fig.27). It fireplace in the original image, and obliterating the rest of the leading comic book artist Jack Kirby, anticipates the is unlikely that the advertisement was repeated later in the it, Hamilton evokes a change recurring in many households use made of comic books by Roy Lichtenstein. In direct year, when new Ford models were being introduced. in the 1950s: with the simultaneous introduction of central contrast, the framed formal portrait to the right of the Young Redecoration of the back wall was completed with the addi- heating and television, the fireplace was no longer the Romance, as well as providing a moment of bathos, may be tion of a manila-toned masking sheet, cut very accurately traditional centre of the home. taken to represent ‘History’ on Hamilton’s list. The sitter to fit around the collaged images and the rubber plant Covering the insipid painting in the Armstrong advertise- is visibly not John Ruskin, as has been suggested,60 and that remained from the Armstrong advertisement. A similar ment, a poster showing the comic book Young Romance the source is as yet unidentified. Hamilton repeated the sheet of white paper suggests the effect of light from the answered the subject of ‘Comics (Picture Information)’ on irreverent gambit of including a token ‘old master’ in Group window, an anomaly given the nocturnal setting. Hamilton’s list. Although in the picture space it is further Two’s This is Tomorrow display, a framed reproduction of Affixed over the lower left corner of the Al Jolson view, back than the television set, it in fact overlaps it, and was Van Gogh’s Sunflowers from the National Gallery, London, the image of the woman vacuuming the stairs, with the now thus stuck down afterwards. It is evidently too small to be at that time in the collection of the Tate Gallery. legendary claim that ‘ordinary cleaners reach only this far’, the actual cover of Young Romance, no.26, 1949, but is rather More up to date was the heraldic Ford logo, cut to create was taken from the same issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal as a ‘house ad’ – an advertisement placed by the publisher, a lampshade slightly larger than the one it covers in the the Armstrong Royal Floors advertisement (Fig.28). On page Crestwood Publications, in another of their titles – in original. The crown was used as an insignia for the Ford 139 the Hoover Company advertised its new Constellation this case another romance comic, Young Love, no.15, of Fairlane, a model released in early 1955, appearing on the model, ‘with exclusive double-stretch hose’. The Space Age November 1950 (Fig.26).59 Young Romance was the first bonnet, side and between the back seats, and was also used apparatus, the first vacuum cleaner to drift on an air bed, is pictorial romantic–escapist comic, following on from to advertise this and other models manufactured concur- juxtaposed with an ‘actual photo’ of the new model in use: pulp-story publications such as Intimate Confessions, used by rently. Although the precise source has yet to be identified, ‘Look at the reach of the Constellation!’ Cut around the

58 The advertisement was also included in The American Home (November 1954). 25. Advertisement for Stromsberg-Carlson television manufacturer. Reproduced in 59 Many thanks to Randolphe Hoppe, of the Jack Kirby Museum, and to Harry advertisement appears in a few other issues of Young Love and Young Romance, only 60 M. Garlake: New Art New World. British Art in Postwar Society, New Haven and Life (10th January 1955). Mendryck for researching and finding this source on my behalf. Although the house Young Love 15 has the lettering in red. London 1998, p.143.

616 september 2007 • cxlix • the burlington magazine the burlington magazine • cxlIx • september 2007 617 POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM

won third prize in the 1954 Mr America competition held in Los Angeles. The magazine, which was of the ‘posing strap’ genre, attributes the photograph to ‘Bruce of Los Angeles’,65 the well-known ‘physique photographer’ Bruce Bellas (1909–74). As with many other male physique photographs of the time, a posing suit – a modern fig leaf, perhaps – has been added to the pouch in the original photograph. The ‘peerless’ Koszewski, who had also won the ‘best abdominals’ prize, suggestively holds a Tootsie Roll Pop in place of a dumbbell, inserted through a slit cut between his thumb and forefinger. This image is taken from an advertisement for Tootsie Roll Pops, a type of lollipop, which appeared in an as yet untraced advertisement in a comic book. Although the published source for the photograph of ‘Eve’ has also yet to be traced, the sitter can be identified as the American painter Jo Baer, who posed for nude photographs while she was a struggling artist in New York in the early 1950s.66 Hamilton was not aware of the identity of the model when he affixed the image, taken most probably from a pin-up, or amateur photography, magazine. Complementing Zabo’s posing trunks, fig-leaf nipple tassels had been painted onto the original photograph by the publisher. Similarly, the ‘cloche’, or lampshade, hat is a collaged addition to the origi- nal photograph, as the roughly cut-out left side of the sitter’s head shows. Close examination also shows that ‘Eve’ is collaged over the front edge of the sofa, perhaps to avoid her raised right arm obscuring the left eye of the telephoning 28. Advertisement for Hoover Constellation. Reproduced in Ladies’ Home Journal 29. Advertisement for Armour Star Ham. Reproduced in Look (20th April 1954). woman on the television screen. The presence of ‘Eve’ looks (June 1955). forward to many such images in Hamilton’s œuvre. In 1961 he noted that ‘it is the Playboy “Playmate of the month” pull-out pin-up which provides us with the closest contemporary 30. Irwin ‘Zabo’ Koszewski. Photograph by Bruce Bellas. Reproduced in bottom stair, the slanting dado and the woman vacuuming at as it does in the original advertisement, to draw attention to equivalent of the odalisque in painting’. Playboy, launched by Tomorrow’s Man (September 1954). the top, the affixed cut-out transformed the top of the green a particular aspect of the image. Hugh Heffner in December 1953, was the first magazine to cupboard at the far left of the Armstrong Floors advertise- The bodybuilder at the centre of the composition, having combine high production values with risqué pin-up photo- ment into something more monumental in appearance.61 entered from stage left, is not Charles Atlas, as has frequently graphy – a ‘quintessential emblem of the affluent society’, ‘Newspaper’. ‘Tape recorder (aural information)’ was Intriguingly, as with the screen of the Stromberg-Carlson been suggested, but the champion bodybuilder Irwin ‘Zabo’ according to Dominic Sandbrook67 – and stands in contrast to shown in a similarly straightforward manner by the tape television mentioned above, the black arrow with the words Koszewski.63 He represents ‘Adam’, according to Hamilton, other more saucy, under-the-counter American publications recorder in the foreground, although it is curious that a ‘ordinary cleaners reach only this far’ has been cut out and alongside the burlesque ‘Eve’ teetering on the sofa.64 The such as those published by Robert Harrison, in particular wind-up model should have been selected when electric then reinserted. It may be that the arrow was originally cut out source of the photograph of Zabo is particularly fitting: the Beauty Parade which ran from 1952 to 1954. It is from these machines were more frequently advertised in magazines of for use elsewhere, then put back when it became clear how September 1954 issue of the pocket-sized magazine Tomor- and other titles such as Cavalcade of Burlesque and Showgirls, or the time. According to Hamilton, this and the rug were the well it fitted the stairs. The arrow creates a link with the signs row’s Man, published by the Irvin Johnson Health Studio in perhaps Amateur Screen and Photography, that the photograph final elements added to the collage.69 The model, a on the façade of the Warner Cinema, visible through the Chicago (Fig.30). This was one of a new genre of small- is most likely to have been taken. ‘Reporter’, can be identified by the barely legible brand window, and adds to the verbal saturation of the room. format magazines that appeared during the 1950s, including Four elements of the collage remain to be addressed: the name between the reels.70 Reel-to-reel magnetic recording Hamilton’s interest in the motif of the arrow had been made the Los Angeles-based publication Physique Pictorial (founded tin of ham, the newspaper, the tape recorder and the rug. had been pioneered in Germany during the 1930s, but it was explicit in the Trainsition series of four paintings made in 1951) and the Chicago-based Vim (1954), as well as Male The Armour Star tin of ham, placed incongruously on the only in the late 1940s that the technology was commercially 1954. As Anne Massey describes, he had taken the arrow motif Classics founded in 1956 in Greek Street, London, and the coffee table, which may be considered as Hamilton’s abbre- developed in America. In 1956 the tape recorder was still directly from Paul Klee, whose Pädagogisches Skizzenbuch Hollywood-based Fizeek (1959). These differed from existing viated signature, in keeping with the quick-fire language a relatively new invention and was advertised widely in (Pedagogical Sketchbook; 1925) had been the subject of Inde- ‘physical culture’ titles such as Muscle Power, Strength and of advertising, is taken from an advertisement that appeared technical and also non-specialist magazines such as Holiday. pendent Group discussions in November and December Health and Iron Man in carrying little pretence at being aimed in Look magazine for 20th April 1954 (Fig.29).68 The Journal Formally, the tape recorder brings to mind the Remington 1953.62 Whereas in the Trainsition paintings Hamilton uses the at a heterosexual bodybuilding readership. Koszewski was a of Commerce placed on the chair in the foreground was typewriter included by Raoul Hausmann in his 1920 collage arrow to indicate the direction of movement across the flat well-known model who appeared in many of these titles. The not part of the original Armstrong advertisement, and Dada Siegt (Fig.31), which bears strong similarities to Hamil- surface of the canvas, in Just what is it . . . the arrow functions photograph used in Just what is it . . . was taken after he had was thus included by Hamilton to represent the category ton’s collage, both formal (e.g. the segment of the Earth on

61 Two other notable appearances of the vacuum cleaner in twentieth-century art may 62 Massey, op. cit. (note 8), pp.74–75. one of the latest authors to repeat the misidentification of Koszweski; D. Sandbrook: Jo Baer has identified the photographers as Nat Wilkes and Sidney Wasserman. be mentioned as bracketing Hamilton’s interest in the Hoover Constellation: Arthur 63 Many thanks to John McHale Jr. for bringing Koszewski’s identity to my attention. White Heat. A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, London 2006, pp.66–67. 67 D. Sandbrook: Never Had it So Good, London 2005, p.620. Dove’s 1925 collage The critic (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York), incor- The identification was first published in D. Waldman: Collage, assemblage, and the found 64 Richard Hamilton in conversation with the present writer, 25th June 2007. 68 All source identifications have been corroborated by comparing measurements porating an advertisement for the ‘Energex Home Favourite Model’; and Jeff Koons’s object, London 1992, p.269. Charles Atlas appears in Paolozzi’s Evadne in Green Dimen- 65 Tomorrow’s Man 2, 9 (September 1954), p.35. with the original. more recent ‘readymade’ sculpture New Hoover Convertibles, New Shelton Wet/Dry Dis- sion of 1949, featuring the exclamation ‘Bunk!’ For the collage and the source illustra- 66 Conversation with the present writer, June 2007. This identification is based on 69 Richard Hamilton in conversation with the present writer, 25th June 2007. placed Double Decker, 1981–87 (Museum of Modern Art, New York). tion, see W. Konnertz: Eduardo Paolozzi, Cologne 1984, p.43. Dominic Sandbrook is likeness and has yet to be substantiated with documentary evidence. Nevertheless, 70 Many thanks to Stuart Blacklock (EMI archives) for this identification.

618 september 2007 • cxlix • the burlington magazine the burlington magazine • cxlIx • september 2007 619 POP IN THE AGE OF BOOM

the ceiling) and thematic (in the connection drawn with America). The reception of Dada and German modernism in general by members of the Independent Group is a rich subject for further research. Alloway’s observation, pub- lished just after This is Tomorrow closed, that Dada shows that a work of art ‘may be made of bus tickets or it may look like an advertisement’ points to the importance of this precedent in Hamilton’s and McHale’s work in the 1950s.71 Just what is it . . . introduced the theme of the interior, often containing one or more figures, that has preoccupied Hamilton ever since.72 His own involvement with interior design, notably as a lecturer at the Hugh Casson’s School of Interior Design at the beginning of 1957, was first con- solidated around the time of This is Tomorrow.73 But if the intention of Just what is it . . . was to create an image of the future, close analysis of the imagery reveals an equivocal result. None of the source material so far discovered dates from 1956, and elements go back to the beginning of the 1950s (the television design, the wind-up reel-to-reel tape recorder), to 1949 (the Young Romance cover) and to earlier dates (the Warner Cinema in 1927; the Victorian portrait). Hamilton later confirmed this retrospective element, describing his conception of the interior in general as ‘a set of anachronisms, a museum, with the lingering residues of decorative styles that an inhabited space collects’.74 In contrast to the ‘House of the Future’, created by Peter and Alison Smithson for the 1956 Daily Mail Ideal Home exhi- bition – a space-age residence that ‘crystallized the domestic 31. Dada Siegt, by Raoul Hausmann. 1920. Photomontage and collage with water- image of the brutalist sensibility’75 – Hamilton’s interior is colour on paper, 60 by 43 cm. (Private collection). more British than American, a ‘cozy little future-world’,76 heir to a genre of English interior scenes reaching back to the eighteenth-century conversation piece. An element not so far identified is the black-and-white speckled rug, whose It may therefore be suggested that underlying the crowd- appearance may have been inspired by the black-and-white ed imagery of Just what is it . . . is an anxiety that this rug in the original Armstrong advertisement. It is, however, new cultural order could not, in fact, be sustained. When it an enlarged detail of a photographic postcard Hamilton first appeared, as a reproduction in an exhibition catalogue, found of the ‘Sands and Promenade’ of Whitley Bay, on Britain was in the midst of the Suez crisis, and the long tra- the Northumberland coast, probably taken around 1930.77 dition of British imperial dominion and supposed global Falling in between ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’, this is a very local, un- supremacy appeared irreparably broken. It could well have American view of ‘Humanity’. taken as a title Harold Macmillan’s famous appraisal that George Orwell wrote that the best indication of the English Britain had ‘never had it so good’, given in a speech in July character could be found on the magazine racks of small 1957, particularly as Macmillan went on to describe the newsagent’s shops, where the extent of a nation’s hobbies general anxiety that this ‘goodness’ was unsustainable; ‘is it and pastimes is documented.78 Just what is it . . . reveals how too good to last?’79 Just what is it . . . is a harbinger not only much these pastimes were influenced by American culture in of the iconography of much post-War art, but also reflects the mid-1950s, but also that the setting for these new pursuits the disquiet of its time, marked by the end of Empire and remained on a more modest and domesticated English scale. the dawn of the Nuclear Age. True to their story, ‘Adam’ Whereas many accounts have described the collage as an up- and ‘Eve’ must soon leave this consumer paradise. Viewed to-date image of contemporary life, in fact a strong element in such a context, Hamilton’s little picture seems to say that, of nostalgia is woven into the contemporary setting. in an Age of Boom, things sooner or later must go Pop.

71 L. Alloway: ‘Dada 1956’, Architectural Design 26 (November 1956), p.374. (note 50), p.49. 72 See R. Hamilton: ‘Interiors’, in idem, op. cit. (note 45), pp.61–63; see also exh. 76 T. Lawson: ‘Bunk: Eduardo Paolozzi and the Legacy of the Independent Group’, cat. Richard Hamilton. Interiors 1964–79, Paris (Galerie Maeght) 1981. in Alloway, op. cit. (note 50), p.25. 73 Hamilton had earlier taught Basic Design at the Central School of Art in the early 77 Hamilton was particularly attracted to photographic, rather than lithographic, 1950s, before developing a similar course at King’s College, University of Durham, postcards, as they could be enlarged without losing resolution. The Whitley Bay Newcastle upon Tyne. postcard was used in a number of subsequent works. 74 Hamilton, op. cit. (note 72), p.62. 78 G. Orwell: ‘Boys’ Weeklies’, Horizon 3 (March 1940). 75 K. Frampton: ‘New Brutalism and the Welfare State: 1949–59’, in Alloway, op. cit. 79 The Times (22nd July 1957); cited in Sandbrook, op. cit. (note 63), p.80.

620 september 2007 • cxlix • the burlington magazine