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Peter Blake Biography
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Peter Blake was interested in art from a young age and attended Gravesend Technical College for three years before completing his National Service in the Royal Air Force. He carried on his studies at the RCA, and upon completion Peter Blake was awarded a scholarship which took him travelling across the globe for a year. This inspirational time led to his early works being filled with theatrical elements, alongside some personal content; Blake had a great interest in posters relating to the theatre and circus, and of the characters who inhabited these worlds.
After Peter Blake returned from his travels, he became enthused by the work of Rauschenberg and Johns especially by the way that they used reproductions within their work. Peter Blake began to use elements of collage within his work, with reference to the world of film, television and celebrity and posters or assemblage. Blake would often use fundamentals of a poster or icon and paint alongside them to change the composition.
In 1967, what was to become his most famous work, the Beatles Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, was commissioned. This image is still referred to within accounts of British Pop Art history as a seminal piece of Pop Art. Peter Blake’s links with popular culture and music in particular have continued throughout his career, and he has also produced posters for Live Aid and other album covers, such as Paul Weller’s Stanley Road.
Peter Blake has exhibited widely throughout his career and has also taught at many esteemed institutions, including St.Martin's School of Art and the Royal College. Peter Blake is a Royal Academician and received a CBE in 1983.
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Exhibitions and Awards
Sir Peter Blake Music Art Gallery, permanent exhibition
Awarded a Knighthood for services to art
Awarded an OBE
Young Contemporaries
John Moores Junior Award for his work - Self Portrait with Badges
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Latest News
Monday 20th July 2009
New release from Sir Peter Blake!
CCA Galleries are delighted to announce the release of Sir Peter Blake's latest silkscreen release On The Beach. On The Beach is the first image in a planned series of four new silkscreen prints depicting different popular leisure activities: the circus, the aquarium and a parade.
Blake uses one of his favourite techniques to create the composition. He gathers visual material from varying sources such as Victorian postcards, old photographs, zoological illustrations, images from artworks or magazines, and arranges these over a simple background. This collage technique is one he also used to great effect in his recent Venice Suite, it gives the works a surreal twist and provides the viewer with a feast of detail for the eye. The use of these collaged elements also lends the work a witty and humorous twist.
On The Beach seeks to capture all the activities that we associate with a visit to the seaside: swimming, messing around in boats, fishing, paddling, sunbathing, donkey rides and so on. However, Blake contrasts these familiar ideas with unexpected images of African and Australian tribal life, or an erotic glimpse of the naked female form. The combination of retro imagery and a radical surrealistic composition makes On The Beach a truly modern piece.
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