Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry pays tribute to The Beatles’ ‘White Album’ designer Richard Hamilton

Singer says father of pop art's death is the 'end of an era'

Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry has paid tribute to Richard Hamilton the designer of The Beatles‘The White Album’ cover.

The late artist – hailed as the father of pop art – once taught the singer at Newcastle University before he formed his band. Ferry said his death marked “the end of an era”.

He told BBC News:

I was fortunate to be taught by Richard Hamilton in 1964, my first year at the fine art department of Newcastle University. From then on Richard was a great inspiration, both as an artist, and as a personality. Frighteningly intellectual, he seemed to validate my romantic leanings towards American culture and he revealed how poetic and mysterious the modern world could be. As a teacher he taught by example, and his restless enquiring spirit I have tried to emulate in my own work as a musician.

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Hamilton, who died at the age of 89, had been working on a major retrospective exhibition of his work scheduled to travel to Los Angeles, Philadelphia, London and Madrid in 2013/14. It is not known how or where he died.

Hamilton also famously depicted The Rolling StonesMick Jagger and art dealer Robert Fraser handcuffed together in the back of a police car following a drugs raid during the 1960s. But it was the 1968 Beatles double album, which featured an all white album cover with the band’s name embossed on it, he was most famous for. Hamilton claimed to have been paid the equivalent of $316 (£200) for the cover and the collage-style poster inside.

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