This exhibition of work by the British artist Richard Hamilton focuses on his preoccupation for over 50 years with James Joyce’s novel ‘Ulysses’. Hamilton has explored through a series of drawings, etchings and digital prints ways of imaging, or imagining, the pictorial equivalents of the wanderings of Leopold Bloom. Each of the 18 chapters of the novel is treated in a different visual manner, reflecting the highly experimental nature of the book. Seven of the 18 episodes in Ulysses have so far been completed as full-scale illustrations, including such key works as ‘The Heaventree of Stars’, 1998, from ‘Ithaca’, and ‘Finn MacCool’, 1983, from the ‘Cyclops’ episode.

This exhibition accompanies the artist on his visual and intellectual journey through ‘Ulysses’ and offers a fascinating insight into the development of one person’s relationship with a work of literature over a period of 50 years. The exhibition coincides with the celebration of Bloomsday and the Museum will host a number of talks and lectures to celebrate the occasion and explore further the connections between Joyce and Hamilton’s work.

The exhibition is organised by the British Council in association with the British Museum, London and is curated by Stephen Coppel, Curator of Prints and Drawings, The British Museum. The exhibition is presented in association with the Irish Times.

A fully illustrated catalogue, with essays by Richard Hamilton and Stephen Coppel, accompanies the exhibition (price €20.00).