Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 3: Analog Era (1950s)

1957

Richard Hamilton Lists the ‘Characteristics of Pop Art’

Event

Book page headed Letter to Peter and Alison Smithson, Richard Hamilton, and 16th January 1957, ending with the beginning of his list of Pop Art characteristics.
Richard Hamilton, letter to Peter and Alison Smithson, 16 January 1957, opening page. Reprinted in Pop Art: A Critical History, edited by Steven Henry Madoff, University of California Press, 1997, page 5. Richard Hamilton; Steven Henry Madoff, editor; University of California Press, 1997. Page from the publisher’s public sample PDF; typography is the later edition. Image source.

According to Hamilton, an early progenitor of Pop Art: “Pop Art is: Popular (designed for a mass audience), Transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low cost, Mass produced, Young (aimed at youth), Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big business” Similar words have been used to derisively describe the on-chain art of today.

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.

Sources

People

Richard Hamilton

Movements

Pop Art

Filed under

Ideas
consumer culture, market, Mass Media Art, mass production, Pop Art, youth culture
Technologies
on-chain
People
Richard Hamilton

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