Reaper (m)

1947

National Service and the idea of illustrating “Ulysses”

During his National Service in 1947 the idea occurs to him of illustrating James Joyce’s complex, experimental novel “Ulysses.” He makes his first preliminary sketches at the Slade School of Art, where he then spends two years, and goes on refining and reworking the images for some fifty years.

1950s–1966

Teaches in Newcastle at Pasmore’s invitation

Through Penrose he meets Victor Pasmore, who gives him a teaching post in the Fine Art Department of Durham University at Newcastle upon Tyne, which lasts until 1966 (from 1952 to 1966 he also teaches at the Central School of Art and Design). Among his students are Rita Donagh, Mark Lancaster, Tim Head, Roxy Music founder Bryan Ferry and Ferry’s visual collaborator Nicholas de Ville; Hamilton described Ferry as “his greatest creation.”

1950–2010 · Virkested

Solingen

1951

The exhibition “Growth and Form” at the ICA

At the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London he stages the exhibition “Growth and Form,” a pioneering form of installation art in which scientific models, diagrams and photographs are presented as a unified artwork. It grew out of D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s 1917 book “On Growth and Form”; at the ICA Hamilton also designed and installed other exhibitions, including one on James Joyce and “The Wonder and the Horror of the Human Head,” curated by Roland Penrose.