Peter Blake U.K., b. 1932

Peter Blake is often called the Godfather of British Pop art. Like many artists of his time, he came of age in a country recovering from the war, so much of his interests were drawn toward the bright and happy lifestyle that was being touted in America via a booming advertising industry utilising groundbreaking new methods such as screen-printing to create optimistic and bold renditions of life in magazines, on posters, and on billboards.

 

The artist's early training as a graphic designer coupled with a rich education in more historical modes of art allowed him to blend his obsessions with the new youthful popular culture and pop music scene in swinging London with foundational art references from the past into a form of urban realism that was fresh. This challenged the status quo's idea about what constituted art and broke down barriers between traditional fine art and the new cutting edge field of Pop. As he progressed in his career, he continued to make work that gave respectful nods to the past cultural lexicon yet which remained equally engrossed in what lay on the horizon, reflecting man's ongoing experience of being prone to the external influences of past, present, and future.

 

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.