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Lobby

1984
Not on view
In the early 1970s Hamilton received a postcard from the artist Dorothy Iannone (b. 1933) showing the lobby of the Hotel Europa, Berlin. Fascinated by the perspectival tricks produced by the mirrored columns and geometrically patterned carpet, Hamilton made a collaged watercolor (1974–75) after the postcard, which in turn became the basis for this print nearly ten years later. As the artist said, the lobby’s rather banal, modern decoration and strange emptiness reminded him of the setting for Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist drama Huis Clos (No Exit; 1944), which takes place in a hotel’s public space, “a metaphor for purgatory, the limbo in which we await transit to another condition.”

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Lobby
  • Artist: Richard Hamilton (British, London 1922–2011 Oxfordshire)
  • Date: 1984
  • Medium: Color collotype and screenprint
  • Edition: 56/88 + 9 artist's proofs
  • Dimensions: 16 7/8 in. × 23 in. (42.9 × 58.4 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Reba and Dave Williams Gift, 1997
  • Object Number: 1997.387.1
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Richard Hamilton
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

More Artwork

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Self-Portrait, Richard Hamilton British, Color screenprint
Self-Portrait
Richard Hamilton
1967
Portrait of Dieter Roth, Richard Hamilton British, Inkjet print
Portrait of Dieter Roth
Richard Hamilton
1998
Swingeing London 67, Richard Hamilton British, Etching, aquatint, photoetching, and collage, embossed and die stamped with metallic foil
Swingeing London 67
Richard Hamilton
Petersburg Press
1968
Five Tyres Remoulded
Richard Hamilton
1971
Patricia Knight II, Richard Hamilton British, Lift ground aquatint with scraping and burnishing
Patricia Knight II
Richard Hamilton
1982

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