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He foresaw his pale body

1990–91
Not on view
In this homage to James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), Hamilton visualizes Leopold Bloom’s body from above, placing the viewer in a position to identify with Bloom’s perspective. In an interior monologue from the book, Bloom anticipates his bath: “He foresaw his pale body reclining in it at full, naked, in a womb of warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved.” Hamilton based the print on a 1948 watercolor in which he had inverted the severely foreshortened view of Andrea Mantegna’s Dead Christ (ca. 1490; Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan), a masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: He foresaw his pale body
  • Artist: Richard Hamilton (British, London 1922–2011 Oxfordshire)
  • Date: 1990–91
  • Medium: Sugar-lift aquatint, roulette and heliogravure
  • Edition: 113/120 + 12 artist's proofs
  • Dimensions: 29 11/16 × 22 1/16 in. (75.4 × 56 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Reba and Dave Williams Gift, 2000
  • Object Number: 2000.394
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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Lobby, Richard Hamilton British, Color collotype and screenprint
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Portrait of Dieter Roth, Richard Hamilton British, Inkjet print
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Swingeing London 67, Richard Hamilton British, Etching, aquatint, photoetching, and collage, embossed and die stamped with metallic foil
Swingeing London 67
Richard Hamilton
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