Peter Blake and Pop Music
Teaching Notes
Biography
P
eter Blake was born in Dartford in 1932
to a working class family. In 1945 he was
evacuated to Worcester with his brother Terry
and sister Shirley where he began attending the
‘ABC Minors’ Saturday morning cinema club.
Other aspects of Blake’s childhood that would
influence his work included his love of jazz
and passion for American music, a result of
discovering his father’s collection of swing
records and evenings spent at the Dartford
Rhythm Club. From the age of 15 he competed in
professional cycle races and attended wrestling
matches with his mother.
In 1946 Blake won a scholarship to study at
Gravesend Technical College, he then graduated
to Gravesend School of Art in 1949. Here he
received comprehensive training in a full range of
artistic processes, from painting to woodcarving,
printing, typography and poster design. After
Gravesend School of Art Blake applied to practice
commercial art at the Royal College of Art, but
on the strength of his portfolio was instead
offered a place at their prestigious Painting
School. Before he took up his place Blake was
first obliged to complete National Service in the
Royal Air Force. Shy and retiring by nature, the
camaraderie he encountered in the RAF improved
his confidence, whilst daily life at the airbase
also fed his creative imagination. Blake’s personal
locker, which he had decorated with pictures of
pin-up girls, was the inspiration for his collaged
sculptures made during the late 1950s.
Portrait of Peter Blake, 2000, Black and white selenium
toned silver print, Presented by the Artist (2012) ,
Photograph © Nicholas Sinclair
won first prize in the junior section of the John
Moore Painting competition. Following this his
reputation as an artist grew and Blake found
himself at the forefront of Britain’s vibrant Pop
Art movement. In 1967, through his art dealer
Robert Fraser, he was commissioned to design
the cover for The Beatles Sgt Pepper album. A
string of similar commissions followed including
collaborations with The Who, Brian Wilson, Paul
Weller and Oasis.
Peter Blake has achieved widespread popularity
as well as critical success. He received a
knighthood in 2002 and, most recently, was
commissioned to design the 2012 Brit Award.
At the age of 24 Blake was the first artists to be
awarded a Leverhulme Research award. The grant
funded his travel around Europe for an entire
year, during which time he studied popular art,
visited local folk museums and studied historic
paintings, sculptures and frescos. In 1961 Blake
1
Working Method
Perhaps best known for his engagement with
found objects and mixed media assemblages,
Blake initially painted in a Realist style. His early
paintings were based predominantly on making
painstaking copies of postcards and magazine
cuttings in imitation of collage.
After 1959 salvaged objects and scraps of
ephemera, which he had collected since his first
day as an art student, found their way into his
work. Blake glued the collage pieces directly to
sheets of board that he painted with colourful
and hard-edged patterns using ordinary household enamels. At the same time he developed
three-dimensional constructions made from old
cupboards and doors, all of which underwent the
same treatment with collage and paint.
Peter Blake’s multidisciplinary training has had a
major impact on his work. A long-term project
has been to explore the numerous ways of
making art. His various album covers, created
consistently since the mid-1960s, illustrate
perfectly the interchange between the fine
art and graphic design skills he acquired at
Gravesend.
Self Portrait with Badges, 1961, Oil on hardboard, Tate:
Presented by the Moores Family Charitable Foundation
The Exhibition
The exhibition charts Blake’s engagement with
Pop Music from the mid-1950s to present day.
This pack is structured around the show’s central
themes: American Rock n’ Roll, The Beatles
and Swinging London and Contemporary
Pop. A further section entitled Blake in Context
frames Blake’s work within the development of
Pop Art in the early 1960s.
Words in this pack which are underlined refer
to the References and Connection sections
on pages 25 to 27.
2
1: American Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll
F
rom the mid-1950s, American Rock n’ Roll
took Britain by storm. For Blake it meant a
new focus for his wide-reaching appreciation of
popular culture. He listened to Chuck Berry, Little
Richard and the Everly Brothers, whilst in his art
Blake celebrated Elvis Presley as the ultimate icon
of his era.
Two strands of picture-making co-existed in
Blake’s practice at this time: the Realist paintings
featuring soft, feathery brushwork and stripped
down compositions with their hard enamelled
colour. In both there is a reverence for readymade found objects, combined with genuine
empathy for music lovers. Blake concentrated
on how fans expressed themselves through
the selection of treasured keepsakes and
memorabilia.
Got a Girl, 1960-61, Oil wood photo-collage and record on
hardboard, 940 x 1549 x 42 mm, Whitworth Art Gallery,
Manchester
with the deliberate arrangement of badges also
reflects his creativity. Within the privacy of his
suburban back garden Blake carefully cultivated
his costume and pose, affirming the idea that
the artist could be a fan, and that this could be a
creative and knowing state.
In Girls and Their Hero the accumulation of
record covers and magazine cut-outs, carefully
copied and hand-painted by Blake, hints at the
saturation of Elvis images in the media at this
time. Created in 1959, the painting followed
hot on the heels of a string of hits that included
Heartbreak Hotel, Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog,
Love Me Tender and Jailhouse Rock. It suitably
reflects the buzz surrounding the American in
the UK. Even photographs of the superstar seem
capable of sending his young female fans into
frenzy.
In Self Portrait with Badges Blake gets right
to the heart of what it means to be a fan, and
it is just as much to do with mirroring popular
obsession as representing his own interests. As
Blake claimed, “The thing about Pop is that you’ve
got to get inside the popular culture of the time
... I’ve got to get right inside with the pin-ups of
Elvis”.
In 2003 Blake created a series of shrines
in homage to the iconic figures that he had
celebrated over the years. Elvis Shrine draws
from Blake’s extensive collection of memorabilia
which he had collated in his studio since the 50s.
Got a Girl takes its title from a song by the Four
Preps, which describes the frustrations of a boy
whose girlfriend is in love with Fabian, Avalon,
Ricky Nelson, Bobby Rydell and Elvis Presley.
The stars appear in the same order in Blake’s
composition as the song lyrics, running from left
to right across the top of the board. In a format
that seemingly imitated a teenager’s bedroom
wall Blake pasted magazine cut-outs directly
onto the support, whilst in the top corner is a
copy of the record itself.
The period culminated in Self Portrait with
Badges, in which Blake casts himself in the role
of an Elvis fan. At twenty-nine, the almost naive
manner in which he presents his infatuation
leaves him exposed and vulnerable. At the
same time his pairing of American baseball
boots, denim jacket and Levi jeans together
3
1: American Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll
Girls and Their Hero 1959-62
Oil on hardboard, 1340 x 1250 mm
Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Gift Through The Art Fund)
Elvis never toured the UK so rather than portraying him directly Blake chose to represent the star
through images in the mass media, which have been fictionally collected by the fans in the painting. The
picture is constructed from a series of flat parallel planes running horizontally across the surface. With
little sense of spacial depth the boundary between the Elvis imagery and the “real space” occupied by
the fans is deliberately ambiguous.
C
D
Key elements
A Images are on boards leaning up against the
legs of a table and there are further framed
pictures propped up against these.
B Table top upon which further magazine images
and an LP are presented.
C The screaming girls were drawn from press
images, chosen by Blake because he thought
their poses were typical of teenage fans. A
poster of Elvis on the wall behind appears on
the same scale and merges with their space.
D The figure on the right-hand side is more
animated and ‘real’ than the girls. She was
painted from life from a model in Blake’s
studio.
B
4
A
5
1: American Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll
EL 1961
Lipstick, collage, oil paint on wood, 296 x 210 mm
Pallant House Gallery (Wilson Loan, 2006)
Alongside his realist paintings, Blake developed reliefs that assimilated everyday domestic surfaces
such as notice boards, bedroom walls and doors. Adorned with images of Hollywood actors and Rock
n’ Roll stars, these saw Blake acting out the role of a fan. Blake’s collage paintings generally included a
combination of the following elements: the frontal portrayal of a star so that their features are clearly
distinguishable; a careful selection of objects that seemingly invoke meaningful memories for the
fan, such as an autograph; and an item that connected them physically to their hero, in this instance a
lipstick imprint upon the Elvis photograph.
B
A
A Picture taken from a fan’s scrapbook and
bearing the lipstick imprint of a kiss
B Metal letters roughly cut as though created by
an amateur fan.
C Board painted with house-hold enamels and
decorated to resemble a found object. The
crack running down the left panel is typical of
a contrived ‘error’ created by Blake to give the
work a raw quality.
C
6
7
2: The Beatles and British Pop
D
uring the first years of the 1960s Blake
emerged as a leading figure in the British Pop
Art Scene. In 1962 he featured in Ken Russell’s
documentary film ‘Pop goes the Easel’, in which
he is portrayed as the father of British Pop art and
mentor to three upcoming painters, Pauline Boty,
Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips. Russell celebrated
London as the epicentre of pop culture, and the
film shows the group mooching around Portobello
Market and the Bertram circus.
As with American rock n’ roll in the ‘50s, music
played a key role in shaping the cultural scene
of the 1960s. A fresh style of pop that was
distinctly British broke through driving forward
changes in fashion, publishing, broadcasting and
photography. With their mop-top haircuts and
smart suits The Beatles were the embodiment of
this youth movement. Having started out playing
in Liverpool’s Cavern Club they were picked up
by manager Brian Epstein and quickly rocketed to
worldwide fame.
Blake began work on his Beatles portrait, The
1962 Beatles in 1963 when the group were
enjoying their first wave of success. His source for
the painting was a photo-spread from a magazine
published in 1962, after the band returned to
England after a residency in Hamburg.
The article announced the new Beatles line-up
featuring Ringo Star, who had replaced Pete Best
as drummer during the trip. By placing them in
identical quadrants Blake gave equal weighting
to each band member. Though it would take him
a further five years to finish, The 1962 Beatles
recognised a pivotal moment in their history just
prior to the fervour of Beatlemania, when the
legendary ‘Fab Four’ were born.
The 1962 Beatles, 1963-8, Acrylic on hardboard, 1219
x 914 mm, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. Wilson Gift
through the Art Fund
history and contemporary culture who were just as
iconic as the Beatles themselves.
The “magic crowd” echoed a new sense of
entitlement prevalent amongst artists and
musicians during the 1960s. Along with the
Beatles and Fraser, Blake belonged to a rising
group of talented and creative individuals who had
come together irrespective of class or traditional
social values.
The album cover was also Blake’s first
internationally reproducible work of art and a
turning point for the artist on a personal level.
No longer simply copying record covers, he was
creating them. Room 2 contains a further design
for Pentagle’s Sweet Child, as well as Chris Jagger’s
The Adventures of Valentine Vox. Appearing
alongside the featured ventriloquist dummy, the
collaboration with Jagger demonstrates Blake’s use
of three-dimensional objects, which has continued
to the present day in cover designs for albums
such as Oasis’ StopThe Clocks (3rd Room).
Created four years later, Blake’s design for The
Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album was undoubtedly the
most enduring and defining image of the era.
The idea for the collaboration initially came from
Robert Fraser, Blake’s art dealer and advisor to Paul
McCartney. For the album The Beatles had devised
an alter-ego, a German Marching Band who could
play anonymously without being mobbed by fans.
McCartney had already sketched the bandstand,
to which Blake added the “magic crowd” of
spectators. This was filled with personalities from
8
2: The Beatles and British Pop
Sgt Pepper 1967
310 x310 mm
Collection of Peter and Chrissy Blake
In contrast to the later collages for Live Aid and Band Aid, the Sgt Pepper album cover was
photographed from a three-dimensional stage set built from models and life-size cut-outs. This was
constructed by Blake and his first wife Jann Haworth in the studio of photographer Michael Cooper.
In the evenings the three would go to Abbey Road to listen to the progress of the album. In Blake’s
design there is no obvious connection with the psychedelic music that it represented, but the history of
the collaboration, together with the cover’s strong visual impact, has enhanced the album’s legendary
status.
A
A
B
B
C
C
D
E
F
G
A The top row: Mae West, W.C. Fields, Edgar
Allen Poe, Fred Astaire and Bob Dylan
E “Real Space” occupied by The Beatles dressed
in marching band costumes.
B Second Row: Aubrey Beardsley, Marilyn
Monroe, Karl Marx, H.G. Wells.
F The band name and album title are included in
the three dimensional stage-set using props
and scenery rather than being superimposed
onto the finished design.
C Third Row: Stuart Sutcliffe, Marlon Brando,
Oscar Wilde, David Livingstone, T.E. Lawrence
G Doll of Hindu goddess Lakshmi and Snow
White Figurine (2nd room). Snow White also
made an appearance on Oasis’ “Stop the
Clocks” album cover (3rd Room).
D Wax-work models of Sonny Liston and The
Beatles borrowed from Madamme Tussauds
9
10
3: Peter Blake: Band Aid to the Brit Awards
T
he decades following the 1960s were defined
by Peter Blake’s collaborations with the most
celebrated musicians of the era.
Between 1984 and 1985 he was commissioned by
Bob Geldoff to produce the album sleeve for Band
Aid’s single Do They Know its Christmas? and the
subsequent Live Aid poster. The first single was a
direct response to the shocking news reports on
the Ethiopian famine. Blake’s design subtly reflected
the magnitude of the crisis, juxtaposing a plentiful
Dickensian Christmas with a reportage photograph
that embodied the plight of the Ethiopian people.
Collage was Blake’s medium of choice mainly
because of the speed at which it allowed him to
assemble images and make sharp contrasts. For the
Live Aid poster he created the impression of a global
jukebox using a world map. The use of a single
illustration as a central image to which he attached
additional collage pieces was a refinement of the
techniques employed in Sgt Pepper. This format
was repeated for several later works, including his
collaboration with the Beach Boy’s Brian Wilson on
That Lucky Old Sun lithographs in 2009.
Original artwork for the Band Aid single Do They Know its
Christmas?, 1984, Collection of Peter and Chrissy Blake
taught him at the Royal College, and even spent
time on the road with his band The Blockheads.
Following Dury’s death in 2001 Blake painted a
portrait of the frontman, in a style that combined
the realism of his earlier self-portrait with the
hard-edged finish of the collage-paintings. The
image was used on the tribute album “Brand New
Boots and Panties”, which was a remake of the
Blockheads’ 1977 record. Blake’s portrait was
inserted into the original cover, a photograph by
Chris Gabrin of a young Ian Dury beside his son.
The layering of separate contextual elements again
allowed Blake to play out a fantasy scenario, and the
pairing of father and son with Dury’s posthumous
portrait is particularly poignant.
At the age of 65 Blake announced his retirement,
though he continued to produce works in series
that he called Encores. Following a cancer scare
Blake reflected more upon his mortality and his art
became increasingly self-referential.
The series Marcel Duchamp’s World Tour is a
journey through Blake’s past subjects, relived
through the eyes of the modernist hero. Room
3 includes a preparatory collage for his painting
He meets the Spice Girls and Elvis which brings
together the girl band with Marcel Duchamp’s alter
ego Rrose Selavy and a youthful King of Rock n’ Roll.
In 2012 Blake’s longstanding influence on British
music was recognised when he was invited to
update the Brit Award statue. To a younger music
audience Blake’s work is best recognised by his
iconic symbols – the love heart, target and star
– which featured on Paul Weller’s Stanley Road
album. Building upon this association with 90s coolBritannia culture, the Brit award design reflects
the relevance of his art to a new generation of pop
musicians including Robbie Williams, Blur and Adele.
The fantasy meeting, which would be impossible
given that Elvis and Duchamp died long before any
of the Spice Girls had been born, was a reprisal of
the ‘magic crowd’ concept. Meanwhile the idea of
a “World Tour” signalled a shift in perspective, from
that of an adoring fan to experiences more familiar
to musicians themselves. This was doubtlessly
the result of his friendships with the likes of Paul
Weller, Paul MaCartney and Pete Townshend. Blake
became particularly close with Ian Dury, having
11
3: Peter Blake: Band Aid to the Brit Awards
Brit Award Statue 2012
Mixed Media, 350 X 100mm
Collection of Peter and Chrissy Blake
Celebrating the latest achievements in the music industry, the Brit Awards are one of the UK’s
most prestigious award ceremonies. The statue has long been based upon Britainnia, the female
personification of the island and a symbol of imperial power and unity. Fashion designer Vivienne
Westwood had developed the streamline shape the previous year, to which Blake added a simple red,
white and blue design based upon a deconstructed Union Jack flag. As he stated. ‘I always find the initial
idea is almost always the best, that’s how I work ... It’s simple and, I hope, effective.”
A
A Corinthian helmet typically worn by Britannia
B Red, white and blue design deriving from the
cross section of the Union Jack flag.
C Love heart, rainbow and target icons are
synonymous with Blake’s designs, and now
also intrinsically linked with British music.
B
C
12
13
4: Blake in Context
B
lake’s representations of pop stars cemented
his position as a leading figure in Pop Art,
a movement that favours everyday culture
over high art. Its roots can be traced to the
Abstract Expressionists Jasper Johns and Robert
Rauschenberg, as well as British artists Eduardo
Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton. During the
mid-1950s they began to seek out seemingly
unimportant and disposable materials from mass
culture. Press cuttings and consumer packaging
were stuck directly unto supports and were
often employed ironically as in Hamilton’s protopop collage Just what is it that makes today’s
homes so different, so appealing? which used
as its source aspirational images from American
magazines.
Kurt Schwitters, Picture of Spatial Growths - Picture with
Two Small Dogs, Mixed media collage on board, 970 x 690
x 110 mm, Tate purchased 1964
By the time the term Pop Art was officially coined
in 1961 Blake had established his own response
to popular culture, developed in parallel yet
separately from both his British contemporaries
and the American Pop artists. As the movement
progressed the hard-edged patterning of Blake’s
collage-objects proved highly-influential to the
next generation of British Pop Artists, most
notably Derek Boshier, Pauline Boty and Patrick
Caulfield. Meanwhile his works based upon pop
stars taken from images in the media preceded
those by Andy Warhol by several years.
Richard Hamilton, Just What is it that makes today’s homes
so different, so appealing?, Collage on paper, 260 x 248
mm, Kunsthalle Tubingen, Germany
Blake saw Hamilton’s collage in the ICA’s landmark
exhibition This is Tomorrow whilst still a student
at the Royal College. Underwhelmed, he cynically
suggested that a more appropriate title for the
show would have been That was Yesterday.
Indeed Blake had already discovered collage
through the German artist Kurt Schwitters. From
the ‘20s and ‘30s he had begun producing works
on paper and three dimensional constructions
that incorporated rubbish materials such as
labels, bus tickets and bits of broken wood.
Blake’s knowledge of folk art also distinguished
his artwork from his peers. Although Pop art was
about establishing a new art that spoke directly
for its time, he looked back to the technical forms
and visual references that best recaptured the
authentic feel of Pop. Blake stated “For me pop
art is often rooted in nostalgia: the nostalgia of
old popular things.” Thus curiosities from folk
14
tradition, examples of applied art and Victoriana
kitsch - much of which he gathered during his
tour around Europe in 1956-7 - continually
reoccur in his work.
Blake has often said that naturalistic painting lies
at the heart of his practice. Equally important to
his early development then was the American
Realist artists Ben Shahn, Honore Sharrer and
Bernard Perlin. They were included in the Tate
Gallery’s exhibition Modern Art in the United
States in 1956, which Blake almost certainly saw.
The influence of their particular style of post-war
Realism emerged in Self portrait with Badges,
created using layers of thinly applied oil paint.
The technique is also evident in his portrait of
John Peel, made for the album cover Right Time,
Wrong Speed in 2006.
Thomas Gainsborough, The Blue Boy, c.1770, Oil on canvas,
Henry E. Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino, CA, USA
Ben Shahn, Unemployment, 1938, Tempera on paper, 346
x 423 mm, Private collection
Blake’s engagement with portraiture also
exemplifies his interest in traditional forms of
representation. In Self Portrait with Badges
the artist’s frontal stance and posture directly
references the format of eighteenth-century
society paintings, particularly Thomas
Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy. The celebrity
portrait, which is central to this exhibition, is
itself a well-established genre, well-used by
Gainsbourough’s contemporary Joshua Reynolds.
Following page: Peter Blake, Self Portrait with Badges,
1961, Oil on hardboard, Tate: Presented by the Moores
Family Charitable Foundation
15
16
4: Blake in Context
Peter Blake, The 1962 Beatles
1963-1968
Acrylic emulsion on hardboard
Pallant House Gallery, Wilson Gift through
the Art Fund, 2006
Richard Hamilton Swingeing London ’67
1967-68
Relief, silkscreen and oil on photo on board
Pallant House Gallery, Wilson Gift through
the Art Fund, 2006
The 1962 Beatles marked the formation of the Fab Four line-up with Ringo Starr as the band’s new drummer.
Similarly Richard Hamilton’s Swingeing London represents a highly-publicised episode in the careers of The
Rolling Stones, though his subject is much less celebratory. The work references the arrest of Mick Jagger and
the art dealer Robert Fraser following a drugs bust at Keith Richards West Sussex home in 1967. A photograph
of Jagger and Fraser handcuffed together appeared in the Daily Express on 28 June under the headline JAGGER
SPENDS NIGHT IN CELL. Hamilton created a series of works deriving from this image which commented on the
sensationalist press accounts.
Key elements
• Both pictures are based upon media images.
Blake Beatles’ photographs came from a
popular fanzine, whist Swingeing London
features a reportage photograph from a daily
tabloid.
• Whilst Jagger and Fraser shield their faces, Blake’s
painting fastidiously reproduces frontal portraits
of each band member.
• Formal devices are used to help us identify the
works with everyday experience. Hamilton
created a relief moulded frame and glazed
panel that simulates the police van windows.
Meanwhile Blake left spaces for each band
member’s signature in imitation of a fan’s
autograph scrapbook.
• In his painting Blake mimicked the
idiosyncrasies of the printing process
by including the coloured auras around
the group’s shoulders, caused through
misregistration.
• The Beatles 1962 is static, arranged around
a quadrant format. In contrast Hamilton’s has
chosen a more spontaneous printing technique
to embellish a fleeting snap-shot taken by
the paparazzi.
17
18
4: Blake in Context
Peter Blake, Ian Dury 2001
Acrylic on board, 305 x 254 mm
Magda Archer and Harry Hill
Attributed to Thomas Hudson
Portrait of Richard Peckham
Oil on canvas, 730 x 630 mm
Presented by Mrs C. Bethune (1982) Given in Memory of
Walter Divie Peckham
Ian Dury is a posthumous portrait painted by Blake only months after the death of his friend in 2001. Set
against a vivid background and dressed in a white t-shirt, the pop star is animated and full of life. His effortless
fashion sense and relaxed pose epitomise the pop star’s laid-back persona. In his portrait of Richard Peckham
Thomas Hudson has also represented a fashionable man of his day. The sitter’s flushed cheeks are a suggestion
of youth, but his pallid complexion perhaps also hints at underlying health problems. Peckham suffered from TB
and tragically died at the age of twenty-five, just two years after the portrait was completed.
Key elements
• The sitters are both represented in a traditional
• Blake has painted his portrait in a hyper-realist
half-length format and set against a stark
background.
style. The treatment of the crisp folds in Dury’s
t-shirt are comparable to the modelling of the blue
satin coat in Portrait of a Young Man. Although
Blake painted the whole portrait himself Hudson
was known to commission specialist drapery artists
to fill in his sitters’ clothing.
• They are dressed in casual attire. Richard Peckham
wears a velvet turban which was commonly worn
by men inside the home. It is just possible to see his
shaved head under the cap over which, on formal
occasions and public outings, he would have worn
a wig.
• The photograph taped to Dury’s front pictures is
Clash singer Joe Drummer wearing an Elvis t-shirt.
• Both works demonstrate how portraits can be used
• Both painters pay close attention to sartorial
details, which express their creative personalities.
Blake has depicted Dury with an earring in his left
ear, whilst Richard Peckham’s outfit is completed
with elaborate and expensive looking buttons.
a record of a person even after their death.
19
20
4: Blake in Context
Peter Blake, Original artwork for the
Band Aid single ‘Do They Know its
Christmas?’, 1984
Paper collage
Collection of Peter and Chrissy Blake
Pair of Dummy Board Figures of
Children c.1690-1700
Oil on wood, H.(boy)988 mm;
H.(girl)1070mm
On Loan From a Private Collection (1985)
Also known as ‘silent companions’, dummy boards are domestic objects which first appeared in grand
homes during the seventeenth century. They are flat paintings done on wood in a realistic style then cut
and shaped to fabricate the figure of a person, usually resembling soldiers, servants and children. Their
exact purpose is unknown although the two figures owned by Pallant House were used as fireguards.
They are believed to be of Ann Churchill, born in 1681, who became Countess of Sutherland, and John
Churchill, born 1686 only son of the First Duke of Marlborough.
Later in their history dummy boards functioned as advertisements in front of shop premises, props for
theatres and pleasure gardens and ornaments for inns and restaurants. At one point they were turned
out on an almost mass-produced level by sign painters. Much of Blake’s work, particularly his fairground
sig paintings and collages portraying pop stars, derives from this popular tradition. Meanwhile his
collage for Band Aid depicts a nostalgic Victorian Christmas which, like the dummy boards, is founded
upon the institution of the family home.
21
Key elements
• Two-dimensional cut outs form the basis
• As domestic items dummy boards slipped out
of both designs. The dummy boards were a
populist interpretation of the illusionistic style
of painting known as trompe l’oeil, which was
prevalent in the 17th century. Meanwhile
Blake’s collage follows a trajectory in twentieth
century modernism, recalling the agit-prop
montages by artists such as John Heartfield in
the 1930s
of fashion in the nineteenth century. However
the home continued to be at the centre of life
in Victorian Britain. This is illustrated by Blake
by his cosy interior, created with the dominant
red carpet, fragments of chintz, wallpaper and
even an image of a fireplace.
• Christian charity was an important aspect of
the Victorian Christmas. Blake draws upon
this association in order to make a dramatic
juxtaposition between Western abundance and
the starving Ethiopian children.
• Both represent children from privileged
families. Ann and John are dressed in
expensive satins and lace embellished with
satin and lace, whilst Blake pictures images
of boys and girls with toys such as rocking
horses, drums and building blocks thus
promoting the idea of a plentiful Christmas.
22
23
Some Important dates in Peter Blake’s Life
1932
Born in Dartford, Kent
1946 – 1949
Attends Gravesend Technical College and School of Art; Junior Department
1949 – 51
Graduates to Gravesend School of Art
1951-3
National Service in the Royal Air Force
1953
First Class Enrols on Fine Art Painting course at the Royal College of Art, achieving a
Diploma in 1956
1956-7 Receives Leverhulme Research Award to study popular art, travelling to Holland, France, Italy and Spain
1958 Receives Guggenheim Painting Award
1960-64 Teaches at St Martin’s School of Art, Harrow School and Walthamstow School of Art
1961
Self Portrait With Badges wins first prize in the junior section of the John Moores Liverpool exhibition
1962 Appears in Ken Russell’s film Pop Goes the Easel, aired as part of the BBC’s ‘Monitor’ series.
1963 Marries the artist Jann Haworth. They visit Los Angeles and shortly after Blake creates his Beach Boys print in homage to the Californian band.
1967 Collaborates with Haworth on the cover for The Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
1979
Separates from Jann Haworth
1981
Elected Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, London
1983
Retrospective exhibition at Tate Gallery, London touring to Hannover
Awarded CBE
1985 Commissioned by Bob Geldoff to design the Live Aid poster in aid of the African famine relief
1987 Marries Chrissy Wilson
1994-6
Takes up a two year post as Associate Artist at the National Gallery, London
1998
Made Honary Doctor, Royal College of Art, London
2002
Receives Knighthood
2007
Peter Blake A Retrospective opens at Tate Liverpool
2011 Personal collection of memorabilia and ephemera is exhibited at the Holburne Museum, Bath
2012 Designs the Brit Award Statue. Numerous projects and celebrations are organised to mark the artist’s 80th birthday, including a remake of the Sgt Pepper album cover featuring contemporary musicians entitled ‘Vintage Blake’.
24
References and Connections
Biography
considered art, often because they already have
a non-art function. Mixed media, in visual art,
refers to an artwork in the making of which
more than one medium has been employed.
Many effects can be achieved by using mixed
media. Found objects can be used in conjunction
with traditional artist media, such as paints and
graphite, to express a meaning in the everyday
life. Peter Blake’s assemblages are threedimensional or two-dimensional compositions
formed of found objects and mixed media.
‘ABC Minors’ Saturday morning cinema club
(Associated British Cinemas) was a cinema chain
in theUnited Kingdom, which operated between
the 1930s and the late 1960s. In the 1950s,
ABC set up the first major Saturday cinema club
for children, “ABC Minors”. Peter Blake referenced
this childhood memory in his 1955 painting ABC
Minors. The two boys, wearing jackets emblazed
with badges, seem to occupy the same space as
the viewer, as Blake positions us at the same level
as the children. This work like many of his other
paintings is believed to express a longing for lost
youth or an empathy with the concerns of youth.
Realist style – Realism in the visual arts and
literature refers to the general attempt to depict
subjects as they, without embellishment or
interpretation.
Typography is the art and technique of
arranging type in order to make language visible.
The arrangement of type involves the selection
oftypefaces, point size,line length, leading (line
spacing), adjusting the spaces between groups of
letters and adjusting the space between pairs of
letters for printing.
1 : American Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll
Rock n’ Roll is a genre of popular music that
originated and evolved in the United States
during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily
from a combination of African American blues,
country, jazz, and gospel music. Though elements
of rock and roll can be heard in country records of
the 1930s and in blues records from the 1920s,
rock and roll did not acquire its name until the
1950s.
Pop Art is an art movement that emerged in
the mid-1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in
the United States. Pop art presented a challenge
to traditions offine art by including imagery
from popular culture such as advertising, news,
etc. ‘Pop’ was a term first applied to popular
culture rather than to art which borrowed from
that culture, but it would be one of the goals of
the Pop art movement to blur the boundaries
between ‘high’ art and ‘low’ popular culture. The
notion that there is no hierarchy of culture, and
that art may borrow from any source and mix
it with others, regardless of their context and
history, has been one of the most important
characteristics of Postmodernism as a cultural
moment. The concept of pop art refers not as
much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led
to it.
Popular Culture was coined in the 19th century
or earlier to refer to the education and general
“culturedness” of the lower classes. The current
meaning, culture for mass consumption, which
originated in the United States, was established
by the end of World War II. Pop Art represented
Popular Culture of the 1950s and 1960s – an
interest in mass-media, mass-production and
mass-culture.
Ready-made was coined by Marcel Duchamp in
1915 when he made a series of “readymades” completely unaltered everyday objects selected
by Duchamp and designated as art. The concept
of the ready-made and the materials used by the
artist were first referred to as ‘found objects’.
Working Method
Found objects / mixed media assemblages
– The term ‘found art’, more commonly found
object describes art created from undisguised,
but often modified, objects that are not normally
25
2 : The Beatles and British Pop
most influential figures in the 20th century art
because of the originality and fertility of his ideas.
‘Pop goes the Easel’ was Ken Russell’s first
full-length documentary for the BBC’s arts series
Monitor. It focused on 4 British Pop Artists Peter Blake, Peter Philips, Pauline Boty and Derek
Boshier.
4 : Blake in Context
Abstract Expressionism was the dominate
movement in American painting in the late 1940s
and 1950s. It was the first major development in
American art to lead rather than follow Europe.
By 1960 a reaction against the emotionalism
of the movement was under way, in the
shape principally of Pop art and Post-Painterly
Abstraction.
Pauline Boty (1938 – 66) was a founder of
the British Pop art movement and Britain’s only
notable female Pop art painter. Boty’s paintings
and collages often demonstrated a joy in selfassured femininity and female sexuality, and
expressed overt or implicit criticism of the “man’s
world” in which she lived. Her rebellious art,
combined with her free-spirited lifestyle, has
made Boty a herald of 1970s feminism.
Jasper Johns (1930 - ) American painter,
sculptor, and printmaker. His career has been
closely associated with Robert Rauschenberg,
and they are considered to have been largely
responsible for the move away from Abstract
Expressionism to the types of Pop art and
Minimal art that succeeded it.
Derek Boshier (1937 - ) British painter. A
student at the Royal College of Art, London,
alongside Hockney, Kitaj and other British Pop
Artists, Boshier became known for paintings
adapting advertisement and comic strip methods
to make critical political and social points. Derek
Boshier: David Bowie and The Clash 23 June
– 7 October 2012 at Pallant House Gallery.
Robert Rauschenberg (1925 - 2008 )
American painter, printmaker, designer and
experimental artist. With Jasper Johns, whom
he met in 1954, he is regarded as one of the
most influential figures in the move away from
the Abstract Expressionism that has dominated
American art in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Peter Phillips (1939 - ) British painter. He
studied at the Royal College of Art, 1959 – 62,
and with his fellow students Derek Boshier, David
Hockney and Allen Jones. His imagery is drawn
from modern American culture, which are usually
set into bold heraldic frameworks or fragmented
into sections and re-organized, so that illusionism
and abstraction are combined.
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924 - 2005 ) British
sculptor and printmaker of Italian parentage. In
1947 he began making collages using cuttings
from old American magazines, advertising and
prospectuses, technological journals. Paolozzi
regarded these collages as ‘ready-made
metaphors’ representing the popular dreams
of the masses, and they have been seen as
forerunners of Pop art.
Collage from the French: à coller, to glue, is a
two dimensional technique of art production,
primarily used in the visual arts, where the
artwork is made from an assemblage of different
forms, thus creating a new whole. Sticking parts
of photographs and illustrations on doors and
screens had been a Victorian amusement.
Richard Hamilton (1922 - 2011 )British
Painter, printmaker, teacher, and writer, one of
the leading pioneers of Pop art. As a young man
he worked in advertising and commercial art
and he is best known for his montages featuring
scenes from advertisement.
3 : Peter Blake: Band Aid to the Brit Awards
Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968) French –
American artist and theorist. Although Duchamp
produced few works he is regarded as one of the
Kurt Schwitters (1887 – 1948) German
painter, sculptor, maker of constructions, writer,
26
and typographer, a leading figure of the Dada
movement who is best known for his invention
of ‘Merz’. The word was first applied to collages
made from refuse, such as bus tickets, cigarette
wrappers, and string. The name was reached by
chance when fitting the word ‘Commerzbank’
(from a business letterhead) into a collage,
Schwitters cut off some letters and used what
was left.
Thomas Gainsborough (1727 – 88) English
painter of portraits and landscapes. His early
work show the influences of French engraving
and of Dutch landscape painting. A change of
portrait style owed much to the study of van
Dyck and in his later landscapes he is sometimes
influenced by Rubens.
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 – 92) English
painter and writer on art. The leading portraitist
of his day and a major figure in the history of
British paining.
Patrick Caulfield (1936 - 2005) British painter.
Influenced by Roy Lichtenstein and by popular
illustration. His typical subject are interiors and
still lifes, treated in a style of flat colours and
black outlines.
Trompe l’oeil an art technique used to create
the optical illusion that the depicted object is
three dimensional.
Andy Warhol (1928-87) American painter,
graphic artist, film-maker and writer. In 1960 he
began making paintings based on mass-produced
images such as newspaper advertisements and
comic strips, then in 1962 of Campbell’s soup cans.
They were exhibited in that year with sensational
success and Warhol soon became the most famous
and controversial figure in American Pop art.
John Heartfield (1891 – 1968) German
painter, graphic designer, and journalist, a
leading figure of Dada and best known as one
of the pioneers and perhaps the greatest of all
advocates of photomontage.
Applied art is the term used to describe the
design and decoration of functional objects to
make them aesthetically pleasing. It is often used
in distinction to fine art.
Naturalistic painting is an approach to art in
which the artist endeavours to represent objects
as they are empirically observed, rather than in a
stylized or conceptual manner.
Ben Shahn (1898 – 1969) American painter,
illustrator, photographer, designer, teacher, and
writer.
Honore Sharrer (1920 – 2009) American
painter whose work documented the daily life
of ordinary working people. At a time when
many of her contemporaries were moving to
abstract expressionism she remained committed
to figurative art as a powerful vehicle for social
criticism.
Bernard Perlin (1918 - ) American painter and
illustrator. Influenced by Kenneth Hayes Miller’s
treatment of New York street scenes.
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Notes
28
Compiled and written by:
Katy Norris, Curatorial Assistant
Louise Bristow, Freelance Designer
Natalie Franklin, Learning Programme Coordinator
n.franklin@pallant.org.uk, 01243 770839
Telephone 01243 774557
info@pallant.org.uk
www.pallant.org.uk
9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 1TJ