I produced a very serious piece of writing trying to express what I had been doing in painting. And I used collage, pastiche, and all the other devices that were applicable to paintings, which seemed to be easily converted to the written word. And within a week of that being published I met Erica Brausen in the gallery on Bond Street: “ Say, what about coming up to Highgate ? ” And she said, “ Well, I won't bother coming up to Highgate, but I saw that piece in the magazine and let's fix up a show. ” [...] It struck me then that the power of the word ts greater than the power of the brush. [...]
Having written about things in a way that makes people think they're serious and reasoned, I had almost come to the conclusion that perhaps the paintings were reasoned and serious. And it takes a long time before the thought begins to come back that maybe you don’t know what you're doing. And now I’m thoroughly convinced that I don't know what I'm doing and that writing is a wayof finding out. Very often,the writing occurs after the event or partway through it. It's not lke writing a program, although I have done that. Understanding begins to come back to the work from the need to think about it.
(Richard Hamilton)
– “ Collected Words, ” Rob Giampietro, Dot Dot Dot #14, 2007
Richard Hamilton, Dust jacket for Richard Hamilton's collection, 1983, 46.5 x 62 cm