A mirrorical return

1998
Not on view
This work is in part a tribute to Hamilton’s friend and mentor Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), who helped him make a replica of his famous work The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) of 1915–23 (Philadelphia Museum of Art). To achieve the dreamlike imagery, Hamilton photographed an artist friend reading a letter in the hallway of his home and, using the computer, ghosted her semitransparent image into a glazed drawing in his hallway. He then scanned the "Bachelor Apparatus,” which is a portion of Duchamp’s The Large Glass, onto the glass, casting the woman as a gentle apparition in the midst of Duchamp’s painting. The enigmatic title is also borrowed from a work by Duchamp.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: A mirrorical return
  • Artist: Richard Hamilton (British, London 1922–2011 Oxfordshire)
  • Date: 1998
  • Medium: Ink jet (Iris) print
  • Edition: 47/50 + 5 artist's proofs
  • Dimensions: 20 7/8 in. × 26 in. (53 × 66 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Reba and Dave Williams Gift, 1999
  • Object Number: 1999.266.6
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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