• Richard Hamilton, exhibition invitation recto. Serpentine Gallery, London, 1975. Black-and-white photographic reproduction of an abstract work: a gestural composition of dark fluid marks, washes, and drips on a pale ground, framed by a thin ruled border. A large organic dark form dominates the upper left, with vertical streaks and pooled marks descending toward the lower centre. Scattered smaller marks and traces throughout. Cream card with age toning, surface marks, and minor corner wear visible.
  • Richard Hamilton, exhibition invitation recto. Serpentine Gallery, London, 1975. Black-and-white photographic reproduction of an abstract work: a gestural composition of dark fluid marks, washes, and drips on a pale ground, framed by a thin ruled border. A large organic dark form dominates the upper left, with vertical streaks and pooled marks descending toward the lower centre. Scattered smaller marks and traces throughout. Cream card with age toning, surface marks, and minor corner wear visible.
1 2

Serpentine Gallery

Richard Hamilton — Private View Invitation, Serpentine Gallery, 1975

Richard Hamilton — Private View Invitation, Serpentine Gallery, 1975

£150.00 GBP
£150.00 GBP
Sale Sold out
Taxes included.

Serpentine Gallery, London, 1975
Original private view invitation card
10.5 × 15 cm
Printed card; black-and-white image to recto, exhibition details to verso
Private view: Friday 3 October 1975, 5–8 pm
Exhibition dates: 4 October – 2 November 1975

Condition: Good vintage condition. Light age toning, handling marks, surface creasing, faint staining, and softened corners consistent with period gallery ephemera.

Original private view invitation for Richard Hamilton: Paintings, Pastels, Prints at the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London. This was Hamilton’s first solo exhibition in England in five years, following his 1970 Tate retrospective.

The show included works from the mid-1970s in which Hamilton returned to advertising, domestic imagery, romantic landscape, and consumer surfaces with deliberately awkward results. Series such as Flowers and Shit, the Soft Landscapes, and the sunset pastels placed sentimental visual language beside low or banal material references, confusing expectations around Pop, taste, and seriousness.

The invitation is a small public-facing support for that moment. One side carries the image; the other gives only the administrative facts: artist, private view, venue, date, opening hours, admission free. Its design is plain, centred, and institutional, closer to notice than promotion. As retained Serpentine material from 1975, it sits between announcement, archive fragment, and secondary object.

A scarce private view card from an important post-Tate Hamilton exhibition, especially interesting for its modest format and the contrast between the subdued institutional typography and the provocative body of work it announced.

Original period item.
Shipping and handling included in the listed price. Packed flat with protective support.

View full details