Blake's work represents a decidedly British condition of searching for a better present or future. In his Pop art, this search led to the idealism seen in American advertisements and pop culture. In his later Ruralist works, this is shown through nostalgic depictions of a more conservative and Victorian past, or in the fantasy worlds of elves and fairy tales. In his landscape works this is found in the quieter, gentler pastures of life in the countryside. Following more than a year of Covid-related woes, the colour, jollity and visual inventiveness of this show of 100 works proves welcome indeed. Particularly likeable is the series known as “Joseph Cornell’s Holiday” (2017-19), comprising dozens of collages of the eponymous, late artist on a fictional trip. Cornell always longed to visit Europe, yet never left the United States. Using cut-out photographs of him, Blake depicts the American attending a street market in Amsterdam, for instance, or stroking a dog in Venice’s Piazza San Marco. In 1962 Blake featured in Ken Russell’s celebrated BBC television documentary Pop Goes the Easel. This film, plus a feature about him in the recently launched Sunday Times Colour Section, turned Blake into a celebrity and one of the first representatives of a new phenomenon: Swinging London. In 1967, in collaboration with his then wife Jann Haworth, he created the cover of the Beatles’ album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, still the most identifiable image of that time and place. One might conclude that far from being an idiosyncratic outsider, like some of the ‘folk’ artists whose work he has long collected, Blake himself has been an insider – a famous artist who created perhaps the most famous album cover of all time. In fact, the truth is that he’s always been both insider and outsider. To paraphrase the great jazz alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, ‘I was unfashionable even before it was fashionable to be unfashionable.’ Blake could claim much the same.

K3088: Peter Blake, Poster for Peter Blake Retrospective Exhibition, Bristol, November/December 1969". Bristol City Council: Museum Collections . Retrieved 5 September 2022. In 1961, Peter Blake took part in the Young Cotemporary’s Exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery. Later that same year, the artist took part in a group art exhibition called Blake, Boty, Porter, Reeve at A.I.A Gallery, also in London. Peter Blake and Art on Film Joseph Cornell’s Holiday – Greece, Athens. ‘The Butterfly Man comes out of retirement to stage a Fly-past for 3 coach parties – Women Artists, Famous Blondes and Joseph Cornell’s Wanderlust Tour’ (2017), Peter Blake. Courtesy Waddington Custot The works in this group presentation demonstrate the translation of drawing into the three-dimensional; towering monumental installations protrude from the walls, and curl up from floors, while the negative space of the picture plane is variously architecturally structured, or revealed through light and shade.Knighted in 2002, an honorary doctor of the Royal College of Art, and with his work represented in major collections throughout the world, Blake's influence is present in the portfolios ofmany highly acclaimed artists of our times. Blake, who turns 89 this month, is about to open ‘Time Traveller’, an exhibition of work old and new – and also a characteristic blend of both – at Waddington Custot gallery in London (18 June–13 August), with a new monograph Peter Blake: Collage published by Thames & Hudson to coincide with the show. In advance of the opening, we spoke via FaceTime about Blake’s long career, and his delight in collage as a medium. The composition is also the source for the title of Blake’s painting and is believed to be set during a Hollywood party symbolizing an artificial and glamorous lifestyle. The original image by Cooper shows the figure wearing tight shorts and sets a homoerotic overtone for the scene but with Blake’s incorporation of balloons, the mood has lightened. Peter Blake (b. 1932) has remained constant and groundbreaking in his exploration of the medium of collage throughout his career spanning seven decades. Most recognised for his iconic 1967 cover for The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, Blake already understood the potential of collage as an art form as a student at the Royal College of Art in the 1950s, where his reputation as a founder and key proponent of the Pop Art movement was established. He taught at various art schools, which stimulated him – and his students. Astute but unassuming, you can see how he inspired them. He encouraged them to paint the world around them: “I opened doors.”

A Museum for Myself by Peter Blake – Published by Holburne Museum to accompany an exhibition held from 14 May to 4 September 2011 Founded in 2003 by Frieze magazine, the international art journal, Frieze Art Fair has become an annual highlight of the British art scene (there’s also a parallel Frieze Art Fair in New York). Blake created an updated version of Sgt. Pepper—with famous figures from Liverpool history—for the campaign for Liverpool to become European Capital of Culture in 2008, and created a series of prints to celebrate Liverpool's status. [16] In 2008, Blake painted a pig for the public art event King Bladud's Pigs in Bath in the city of Bath. [17] The infiltration of popular culture, and most specifically pop music, into the art world scene was a common motif in Blake's work. The most famous example of this crossing of genres can be seen in the work he produced for The Beatles' seminal Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover.

Sir Peter Blake interview

Featuring works from across his seven-decade career, the show focuses on Blake’s enduring love of collage. His most famous work in this technique was the cover for the 1967 Beatles’ album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (co-designed with his then wife Jann Haworth) – in which the band pose with cardboard cut-outs and waxworks of their heroes. What makes this painting so interesting is that it is painted in the same way that a 17th-century artist might depict their interests and accolades.