Richard Hamilton is one of the most important British artists of the 20th century. From his earliest works, which examine subjects as apparently diverse as farm machinery and the writings of James Joyce, Hamilton is widely recognised for his exploration of the relationship between contemporary life, commerce and technology and he was one of the first to explore the potential of the computer in art. This suite of screenprints, which began with a drawing copied, in 1963, from an illustration of the development of tyre treads from 1902 -1950, in a 1951 edition of the magazine 'Technique et Architecture', demonstrates his interest in design technology. He was also interested in exploring deeper, philosophical issues relating to ideas of the early 20th-century Dada artist Marcel Duchamp in the use of tautology and of complication through repetition. He developed the drawing first as a single screenprint in 1964 and again in 1970 when he was offered the services of an American computer programmer to plot the perspective of the drawings. A 3-d relief cast was produced as part of the suite and textual documentation is also an integral part of the work.