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The heaventree of stars

1998
Not on view
At the end of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), the characters Molly and Bloom drift off to sleep under “[t]he heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.” For this print, Hamilton posed his wife, the artist Rita Donagh, and his assistant Nigel McKernaghan as the two lovers. Using Quantel Paintbox and Photoshop, Hamilton added hand-drawn lines and other details such as a bedcover crocheted by his mother. The digital technology enabled Hamilton to work entirely from his studio at Northend, a converted farm in the Oxfordshire countryside, without having to travel to printers’ workshops, as had been his habit.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The heaventree of stars
  • Artist: Richard Hamilton (British, London 1922–2011 Oxfordshire)
  • Date: 1998
  • Medium: Ink jet
  • Edition: 40/40 + 4 artist's proofs
  • Dimensions: 30 1/16 × 22 1/2 in. (76.4 × 57.2 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Reba and Dave Williams Gift, 1999
  • Object Number: 1999.266.7
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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