Inside pop art star Peter Blake's studio of curiosities
A new monograph and exhibition explore the fantastical life, work and studio of British pop art’s ‘godfather’ Peter Blake
‘Peter understands that collage places one time on top of another,’ says David Hockney in the foreword of Peter Blake’s major new monograph published by Thames & Hudson. And Hockney, perhaps more than most, would know about the tangled role of time in the work of Peter Blake; they were, after all, school friends.
Throughout his seven-decade career – which included co-designing the famed album sleeve for the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band – the octogenarian artist has redefined what collage can be: a collision of media, genre, time and space.
Much like his collage, Blake’s Chiswick studio displays a pathological passion for amassing a dizzyingly broad assortment of things. Through newly commissioned photography, the monograph offers a rare peek inside Blake’s studio. It's a portal to another world, brimming with 50,000 items including a fleet of model ships and a dresser piled high with hats for every mood and occasion – this is where the magic happens.
Peter Blake: Collage coincides with a survey exhibition at Waddington Custot in London. Titled ‘Peter Blake: Time Traveller’, the show is a journey through the artist’s distinctive approach to collage-making, includes works from Blake’s Alphabet and Museum of Black and White series, as well as pieces made in homage to fellow artists Sonia Delaunay, Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg.
The show begins with Blake’s early experiments with collaged paper after he encountered work by Schwitters in the 1950s, and travels through his rise to prominence to his current, self-proclaimed Late Period and most recent digital-print photo collages. It reveals his knack for extracting fragments of banal reality, and transforming them into compositions that could only exist in imagination. Blake’s approach to precise and bold combinations was recently echoed in Blake’s recipe contribution to Wallpaper’s Artist’s Palate series, the quintessentially British 'beans on toast'.
RELATED STORY
Collage has allowed Blake to construct a parallel universe, in which logic can be warped, fantasy reigns and reality doesn’t matter. In his surreal cut-and-paste compositions, clowns square up to wrestlers and icons brush shoulders with kitsch souvenirs and holiday postcards. In Mystery Tour £2.10s. 0d (2005), Marcel Duchamp meets the Spice Girls and the cast of The Wizard of Oz. ‘I suppose I’m sending poor old Marcel [Duchamp] off for life, for eternity, on this world tour which is perhaps my world tour. You know, perhaps it’s my fantasy and he’s my alter ego being sent off to meet Elvis and the Spice Girls,’ Blake said of the piece.
On view for the first time is the artist’s largest canvas to date, Late Period: Battle. Blake began the work in 1964, but it was abandoned and left unfinished until he turned to collage to complete the work in 2018.
Both the book and show are deep dives into Blake’s command of collage. They also captures the artist’s flair for fusing seemingly disparate, distinct items, figures and scenes into one cohesive artwork, one that has cemented his status as the ‘Godfather of British pop art’.
As Hockney’s foreword concludes, ‘His work looks back, but they are always really about the now and contemporary culture. Nobody has done anything quite like them. They’re terrific.’
INFORMATION
Peter Blake: Collage published by Thames & Hudson and available at Amazon
’Peter Blake: Time Traveller’, until 13 August 2021, Waddington Custot. waddingtoncustot.com
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
Enjoy ocean and jungle bliss at Bespoke Tulum’s residences in Mexico
Bespoke Tulum is an exclusive hospitality complex designed by Muro Rojo Arquitectura on Mexico’s Caribbean coastline
By Sofia de la Cruz Published
-
In Van Cleef & Arpels’ high jewellery, the archival meets the au courant
Van Cleef & Arpels pays tribute to its rich heritage with a captivating high jewellery collection
By Hannah Silver Published
-
New Nothing Ear and Ear (a) earbuds: audio innovation with a retro nod
Nothing’s new Ear and Ear (a) earbuds, drawing inspiration from vintage portable hi-fi and packed with updates, help the company maintain its status as an audio innovator
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Yinka Shonibare considers the tangled relationship between Africa and Europe at Serpentine South
Yinka Shonibare‘s ‘Suspended States’ at Serpentine South, London, considers history, refuge and humanitarian support (until 1 September 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Gavin Turk subverts still-life painting and says: ‘We are what we throw away’
Gavin Turk considers wasteful consumer culture in ‘The Conspiracy of Blindness’ at Ben Brown Fine Arts, London
By Rowland Bagnall Published
-
Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: Bloomsbury’s untold story
‘Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story’ is a new exhibition at Charleston in Lewes, UK, that charts the duo's creative legacy
By Katie Tobin Published
-
Don’t miss: Thea Djordjadze’s site-specific sculptures in London
Thea Djordjadze’s ‘framing yours making mine’ at Sprüth Magers, London, is an exercise in restraint
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘Accordion Fields’ at Lisson Gallery unites painters inspired by London
‘Accordian Fields’ at Lisson Gallery is a group show looking at painting linked to London
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
‘Package Holiday 1968-1985’: a very British love affair in pictures
‘Package Holiday’ recalls tans, table tennis and Technicolor in Trevor Clark’s wistful snaps of sun-seeking Brits
By Caragh McKay Published
-
Fetishism, violence and desire: Alexis Hunter in London
‘Alexis Hunter: 10 Seconds’ at London's Richard Saltoun Gallery focuses on the artist’s work from the 1970s, disrupting sexual stereotypes
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Wayne McGregor’s new work merges genetic code, AI and choreography
Company Wayne McGregor has collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a series of works, ‘Autobiography (v95 and v96)’, at Sadler’s Wells (12 – 13 March 2024)
By Rachael Moloney Published