Wendy Levy Art Gallery
Pop Art Comes to Didsbury...
Peter Blake (born 1932) is often referred to as the godfather of British Pop art, forerunning the work of Andy Warhol - and you can see his work throughout April in Didsbury at the Wendy Levy Art Gallery on Warburton Street.
His work demonstrates his interest in popular culture, cleverly combining more formal artistic elements with popular figures from film, music and television. This highly influential artist has been exhibiting his work in solo shows across the globe since the seventies.
Blake is a painter of urban realist subjects and pioneer of ‘Pop Art’. He studied at Gravesend Art School 1948–51, then served in the R.A.F. 1951–3. Afterwards, he continued his studies at the R.C.A. 1953–6, subsequently winning the Leverhulme Research Award to study popular art and travelling in Holland, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain 1956–7
In 1954 & 1955, he exhibited at the Royal Academy 1954 and 1955, and six years later was awarded First Prize in the Junior Section, John Moores Liverpool Exhibition 1961. His first one-man exhibition was held at the Portal Gallery 1962.
Blake was included in group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and had his first solo exhibition in 1960. It was with the 'Young Contemporaries' exhibition of 1961 where he was exhibited alongside David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj that he was first identified with the emerging British Pop Art movement.
He first came to wider public attention when, along with Pauline Boty, Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips, he featured in Ken Russell's film on pop art, "Pop Goes the Easel", which was broadcast on BBC television in 1962. From 1963 Blake was represented by Robert Fraser which placed him at the centre of swinging London and brought him into contact with leading figures of popular culture.
In 2006, Blake designed the cover for Oasis greatest hits album "Stop the Clocks". According to Blake, he chose all of the objects in the picture at random, but the sleeves of "Sgt. Pepper" and "Definitely Maybe" were in the back of his mind. He claims, "It's using the mystery of 'Definitely Maybe' and running away with it." Familiar cultural icons which can be seen on the cover include Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, Charles Manson (replacing the original image of Marilyn Monroe, which couldn't be used for legal reasons) and the seven dwarfs from Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.
The Tate Liverpool held a major restrospective of his work in 2007 and now a solo exhibition of his work will be showing at the Wendy Levy Gallery from 3rd April to 29th April 2009.
