Photo Collage Paola Rigamonti

Bechtle Hamilton Richter

In the 60s several painters decided to bluntly incorporate photography in their canvases. It was a bold and radical break both with the then dominating Abstract Expressionism and with the taboo that banned photography from the pictorial space since the appearance of the latter. Yet they did it, and they did it independently.  A look at the works of Robert Bechtle, Richard Hamilton and Gerhard Richter might helps to unveil the subterranean link that connected them and give some insights on this ‘new’ practice.

This group of rebels shared some demographic facts. Apart from a few exceptions, they were all born between the 1920s and 30s, and were raised in the western culture. Most of them either grew up in or moved to the US before the 60s. The rest, with the exception of Gerhard Richter, grew up in Western Europe.