Testament

© estate of Richard Hamilton. All rights reserved, DACS 2024. Image credit: British Council Collection

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The artist's job has always been that of selecting and reassembling elements from a changing, chaotic experience of the world. In creating order, coherence and stability from the flux of life, the artist produces an icon – an epiphany: the painter has to fix, formalize, a momentary enlightenment. Richard Hamilton, the herald of Pop art, seized on images that defined the times. One of the momentous events of 1993 yielded a picture that resonated. On 19 January 1993, the Japanese Imperial Palace announced the engagement of The Crown Prince of Japan, heir to the oldest ruling dynasty in the world, to Masako Owada, the daughter of a high level diplomat. Their six-year courtship had been a media obsession and their wedding, on 9 June 1993, was to attract a global audience of around half a billion people.

British Council Collection

London

Title

Testament

Date

1993

Medium

oil on Cibachrome on canvas

Measurements

H 82 x W 60 cm

Accession number

P6222

Acquisition method

purchased from Anthony d'Offay Gallery, 1994

Work type

Painting

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British Council Collection

British Council, 1 Redman Place, London, Greater London E20 1JQ England

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