Kent State
Artist
Richard Hamilton
(British, 1922–2011)
Date1970
Mediumcolor screenprint
Dimensionsimage: 66 × 87 cm (26 × 34 1/4 in.)
ClassificationsPrints
Credit LineWilliam Grimm Memorial Fund
Object number1972.134
Label TextHamilton was a leader of the 1950s Independent Group, a coalition of British artists and intellectuals who focused on popular culture in the service of their art. Today, the Independent Group is credited as a foundational force behind American and European Pop Art.
In May 1970, Hamilton set up his camera and watched TV each night for a week looking for the subject of his next work. Expecting a run of soccer matches and game shows, Hamilton instead documented coverage of the tragic shooting at Kent State University, when Ohio National Guardsmen shot and killed four students who were in the vicinity of a banned student protest. The accompanying photographs represent some of the press coverage that appeared in newspapers nationwide. Among them is the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by then-student photographer John Filo, showing fourteen year-old Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the dead body of her friend Jeffrey Miller.ProvenancePurchase from Carl Solway Gallery, Cincinnati, OHOn View
Not on view
