Fathers of Pop - ACE085.2

Reyner Banham in the Courtauld Institute. Looks out of the window at 1950s Cadillac in the street below. Richard Hamilton’s Hommage à Chrysler Corp (1957), and other items from an exhibition of commercial art. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Dover Street. Banham talks about the "Independent Group", members of which were Hamilton, Paolozzi, Alloway, etc. Banham drives off in the Cadillac. Banham lists some of the myths about the Independent Group. He introduces Dorothy Morland, Director of the programme at the ICA at the time, who says that there is no official record of the foundation of the Group. Richard Hamilton believes the Group was founded as a gesture against the ICA. Banham and Morland. She believes she may have been responsible for the name of the Group. Toni del Renzio describes discussions about bringing younger talent into the ICA. Photograph of Sir Herbert Read, chairman of the ICA, whom Hamilton and del Renzio suggest was not popular. Lawrence Alloway talks of Reed’s idealism about art which meant that, for example, commercial art was neglected, and made Reed a target of criticism. Hamilton relates an anecdote about Kenneth Clark describing Victor Pasmore as "one of the six best artists in England" when giving evidence at Pasmore’s trial as a Conscientious Objector, and says that the idea of such a canon was "anathema".