David Hamilton

DAVID HAMILTON (London, 1933-Paris, 2016).
"Young woman asleep", 1974.
Photography on gelatin silver.
Signed and dated.
Measures: 17 x 23.5 cm.
In this photograph the author focuses on the model from a high perspective. He avoids portraying the face, not only because the young woman is lying face down, but also because he leaves the model's head out of the frame. By the position and the explicit eroticism, the author offers us a revision of Coulbert's "The Origin of the World". David Hamilton was a British photographer and film director known for his photographs of young women and girls, mainly nude. His style of approach was referred to as "Hamilton Blur", Hamilton's images became part of a debate about "art or pornography". Her artistic skills began to emerge during a job in an architect's office. At the age of 20, he went to Paris, where he worked as a graphic designer for Peter Knapp of Elle magazine. After achieving recognition, he was hired by Queen magazine in London as an art director. However, Hamilton soon realised his love for Paris, and after returning there he became the art director of Printemps, the city's largest department stores'. While Hamilton was still working at Printemps, he began doing commercial photography, and the dreamy, grainy style of his images was critically acclaimed. His photographs were sought after by other magazines such as Réalités, Twen and Photo. His additional successes included dozens of photographic books; five feature films; countless magazine exhibitions; and museum and gallery exhibitions. In December 1977, Images Gallery, a studio owned by Bob Persky at 11 East 57th Street in Manhattan, showed his photographs at the same time Bilitis was launched. At the time, art critic Gene Thornton wrote in The New York Times that they revealed "the kind of ideal that was regularly expressed in the great paintings of the past". In his book, Contemporary Photographers, curator Christian Caujolle wrote that Hamilton worked with only two fixed devices: "a clear pictorial intention and a latent eroticism, apparently romantic, but asking for trouble". In addition to depicting young women, Hamilton composed photographs of flowers, men, landscapes, farm animals, pigeons and still lifes of fruit. Several of his photographs resemble oil paintings. Most of his work gives an impression of timelessness due to the absence of automobiles, modern buildings and advertisements. In 1976, Denise Couttès explained Hamilton's success by saying, "(his photographs) express escapism. People can only escape the violence and cruelty of the modern world through dreams and nostalgia". His soft-focus style came back into fashion in Vogue, Elle and other fashion magazines from 2003 onwards. The photobooks she debuted on screen in Bilitis. Later, he married Gertrude, who co-designed The Age of Innocence, but they divorced amicably.Hamilton divided his time between Saint-Tropez and Paris. He had enjoyed a renaissance in popularity since 2005. In 2006, David Hamilton, a collection of captioned photographs, and Erotic Tales, containing Hamilton's fictional short stories, was published. At the time of his death, Hamilton was working on another book, Monograph of Montenegro.