The Annunciation, 2005

Richard Hamilton’s edition The Annunciation (2005) is a direct response to Fra Angelico’s celebrated Annunciation fresco in the Convent of San Marco in Florence. Hamilton transposes the Renaissance subject into a contemporary gallery interior, where a painting of a seated woman speaking on a cordless telephone replaces the sacred encounter between Mary and the Angel Gabriel.

Created through a complex process of digital collage combining photography and painting, the work deliberately blurs the distinction between an actual painting and its photographic representation. The telephone takes the place of the angel as a wry reference to contemporary communication, while the gallery setting replaces Fra Angelico’s monastic architecture. In this interplay between Renaissance imagery, contemporary life and digital media, Hamilton examines the ways in which images are constructed, reproduced and perceived.