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.
-
Bringing BRAT to life: we meet the designers behind Charli XCX's victory-lap tour
An exclusive interview with Cour Design's Jonny Kingsbury, the stage and lighting designer behind Charli XCX's new BRAT tour
By Smilian Cibic Published
-
Apple’s new Mac mini is a pocket-sized powerhouse thanks to the M4 processor
With the new Mac mini, Apple has squeezed its M4 and M4 Pro processors into the smallest conceivable footprint, physically and environmentally. Apple insiders tell us how
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
One to Watch: EJM Studio’s stool is inspired by the humble church pew
EJM Studio’s ‘Pew’ stool reimagines the traditional British church seating with a modern, eco-conscious twist
By Smilian Cibic Published
-
Ndayé Kouagou speaks the language of the chaotic social media influencer in London
Ndayé Kouagou celebrates meandering incoherence with an exhibition, ‘A Message for Everybody’, at Gathering in London
By Phin Jennings Published
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this week
A snowy Swiss Alpine sleepover, a design book fest in Milan, and a night with Steve Coogan in London – our editors' out-of-hours adventures this week
By Bill Prince Published
-
Discover psychedelic landscapes and mind-bending art at London’s Tate Modern
'Electric Dreams' at the Tate encompasses the period from the 1950s to the beginning of the internet era
By Hannah Silver Published
-
From activism and capitalism to club culture and subculture, a new exhibition offers a snapshot of 1980s Britain
The turbulence of a colourful decade, as seen through the lens of a diverse community of photographers, collectives and publications, is on show at Tate Britain until May 2025
By Anne Soward Published
-
Meet Kenia Almaraz Murillo, the artist rethinking weaving
Kenia Almaraz Murillo draws on the new and the traditional in her exhibition 'Andean Cosmovision' at London's Waddington Custot
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Discover Eve Arnold’s intimate unseen images of Marilyn Monroe
‘Marilyn Monroe by Eve Arnold’, published by ACC Art Books, is a personal portrayal of an icon
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Inside Jack Whitten’s contribution to American contemporary art
As Jack Whitten exhibition ‘Speedchaser’ opens at Hauser & Wirth, London, and before a major retrospective at MoMA opens next year, we explore the American artist's impact
By Finn Blythe Published
-
10 books culture editor Hannah Silver recommends this winter
Lacking inspiration over what to read next? Wallpaper* culture editor, Hannah Silver, shares her favourite books
By Hannah Silver Published