Peter Blake
Biography
Often referred to as the ‘Godfather of Pop Art’, Sir Peter Blake’s images arose from a love affair with the icons and ephemera of popular culture, such as adverts, music hall entertainment and wrestlers, coupled with brilliant naturalistic techniques such as collage, drawing and painting. It is this unique approach that has won him international fame.
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It was at ‘Young Contemporaries’ in 1961, where he showed his work alongside the likes of David Hockney, that Blake was first identified with the emerging Pop Art Movement. He won the John Moores junior award in the same year with his painting ‘Self Portrait With Badges’ (now owned by Tate), but it wasn’t until he featured in Ken Russell’s classic film ‘Pop Goes The Easel’, broadcast on BBC2 in 1962, that he came to wider public attention.
Best known for his record sleeve cover for The Beatles ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, Blake (CBE, RDI, RA), has also designed record sleeve covers for Paul Weller (Stanley Road), Band Aid (Do They Know It’s Christmas), and more recently a greatest hits album for Oasis, and the John Peel tribute album.
Born in 1932 in Dartford, Kent, Blake entered Gravesend School of Art at seventeen and in 1950 was accepted by the Royal College of Art. He was made a Royal Academician in 1981 and a CBE in 1983, and in 2002 he was awarded a knighthood for his services to art. He now resides and works in London.