Cecil Beaton, Richard Hamilton and the queer, transatlantic origins of pop art
Janes, Dominic (2015) Cecil Beaton, Richard Hamilton and the queer, transatlantic origins of pop art. Visual Culture in Britain, 16 (3). pp. 308-330. ISSN 1471-4787 (Print); 1941-8361 (Online)
- Documents
- Details
- 5368:112287
Significant aspects of American pop art, notably those produced or influenced by Andy Warhol, are now understood as participating in the queer visual culture of New York in the 1960s. This article suggests something similar can be said of the British origins of pop art before the work of the Independent Group. The interwar practices of collage of the celebrity photographer Cecil Beaton prefigured those of Richard Hamilton in that they displayed a distinctively British interpretation of male muscularity and female glamour in the United States. (Homo)eroticism in products of American popular culture such as science-fiction magazines fascinated not simply Beaton but also a number of members of the Independent Group including Hamilton. The origins of pop art should, therefore, be situated in relation not only to American consumer culture but also to the ways in which that culture appeared, from certain British viewpoints, to be queerly intriguing.
This article has since been reprinted in a slightly revised form in: eds Anne Massey and Alex Seago, Pop Art and Design (London: Bloomsbury, 2017).
Actions (login required)
 |
Edit View |