The paintings of Peter Blake

The paintings of Peter Blake.


Sir Peter Blake has had a very diverse career, embracing many styles and subjects throughout his lifetime. He has become known as ‘the godfather of British Pop Art,’ with the iconic imagery that he has produced during the 1950’s and 1960’s. His work is fundamental to the traditions of figurative realism, and collectively throughout his lifetime he has engaged with Victorian folklore and literature, illustrated children’s books and created images using a variety of media such as collage and assemblage.

From the very beginning, Blake has had a definitive style with his integration of trivia and banal objects and literature into his works. This gives his works a nostalgic feel which sets him apart from his Pop Art colleagues. This sense of nostalgia, and his attachment to his own childhood memories has remained a theme throughout his career. Grunenberg, C and Sillars, L( 2007)
On The Balcony 1955-57 Oil on canvas.


On the Balcony (1955-57) is a significant early work and still stands as one of the iconic pieces of British Pop Art, showing Blake's interest in combining images from pop culture with fine art. The work, which appears to be a collage but is in fact painted, shows a painting of a photograph of the royal family, a copy of Life magazine, a boy on the left of the composition holding Manet’s, The Balcony, and various images of paraphernalia that is so readily recognisable by the majority of people, making the painting accessible and maybe less daunting to the wider audience.
WJT Mitchell argues that, “Blakes paintings are about looking at pictures, the excitement of about how we collect them, display them, and treat them as objects.”(Mitchell, W.J.T 1994 P.35-82)

There is so much to look at in this painting; it is very much a visual diary of what was going on at that time. The flat plane of colour which I think is the lawn, appears to make the picture recede but the assortment of images which are strewn over the top, also appear to flatten the area at the same time.
The introduction of popular imagery and typography alongside the contemporary application of flat planes of bright colours was the beginnings of his interest in creating art that would appeal to the majority of people not just the art world elite.

The 1960’s is very much associated with the counter culture, the younger generation had more expendable income and freedom compared to the more austere 1950,s it was a time of youthful exuberance and excess. The media and the art world were very much a part of the era, which was increasingly becoming saturated with mass produced popular images.
Blake began to use posters and photographs as models for his paintings and assemblages portraying the pop and film stars of the era. His work still however remained very personal to him, unlike the finished, slick artworks being produced by the likes of Warhol and Richard Hamilton, his love of collecting and his attachments to anything that has been weathered and used in the past being incorporated into his work.
He also began using household gloss paint in bright colours in many of his collages and assemblages, creating works such as, Marilyn Monroe’s Dressing Room Door (1962) and Girl in a Window (1962)

The Toy Shop is an excellent example of the type of work that he was producing. He incorporated old knocked about second hand toys into this piece, which is still very much in keeping with his love of nostalgia and collecting incorporated into an original contemporary work of art. His use of everyday objects to symbolise the identity of someone (in this case himself) is something that many artists have explored and is an example of how diverse an artist he is and how he is not afraid to explore and examine new methods and media whilst still painting and producing work that was still very much about the fusing together of old and new. Osterwold, T ( 2003)

The Toy Shop, 1962 Mixed Media, Glass and Wood. Tate Gallery, London


The bringing together of both high art and popular imagery that is so intrinsic to his style is brought about by his education at art school and his working class background. In an interview with the Guardian, he states.
“I was in contact with artists who introduced me to high art and classical music, whilst my home life was very much about working class pursuits. This contact in my life paved the way for my involvement in Pop Art.”
Wroe, N (2006)

His gradual move away from the cosmopolitan art world during the seventies and a move into the countryside paved the way for a change of direction for Blake. He and a group of artists formed The Brotherhood of Ruralists, which was very much in keeping with the ideals of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood.
A quote from Blake Cited in, Grunenberg,C and Sillars,L ( 2007) pretty much sums up the manifesto

“Simply our aims are the continuation of a certain kind of English
Painting; we admire Samuel Palmer, Stanley Spencer, Thomas Hardy
Elgar, cricket, the English landscape, The Pre- Raphaelites, etc..........
Our aims are to paint about love, beauty, joy, sentiment and magic.” (Blake P. 1978, p.92)

He revisited literary subjects such as Alice in Wonderland which eventually culminated in his fairy paintings. But all are painted in a way that they are not so much ethereal, but real life figures that are very much in the present.

“A girl might have been a pin up in the sixties, then when I became a Ruralist in the seventies she would’ve become Titania or Ophelia.”
Lambirth A , (1997)




Titania 1976-83. Private Collection.
In an interview from the Independent (1997) Blake explains how his Titania painting developed from a photograph of the model Twiggy. Although it is not a direct portrait of her, he used her image as reference.
The fairies that are painted underneath look like they could be models whose dancing movements are hugely exaggerated, and includes an image of a fairy that looks very much like Marilyn Monroe.
So even if the subject matter could at first be considered to be traditional and even old fashioned, Blake has taken the idea and painted it in such a way that it is still very much his own style, again combining the old and new within his imagery.
Blake has gone on to create many works of art since his Ruralist days which only lasted a few years. One of his more recent exhibitions is a series of paintings entitled, “Duchamps World Tour.”
Duchamp, who paved the way for all artists claiming that anything could be considered art, if the artist chooses it. Travels the world in a tour bus meeting subjects of his previous paintings, such as Tarzan and his family. In other works he meets Elvis and the Spice Girls, has a game of chess with Tracey Emin and goes to the Congress of Unusual People. The Artists’ Fancy Dress Ball is hosted by Damien Hirst dressed as Watteau’s ‘Pierrot’ and includes Picasso dressed as Touchstone from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The American artist, Edward Hopper also makes an appearance.
Tate Liverpool (2007)
Although Blake has really not been taken seriously by the art world elite. It could be argued however that his contributions to the arts have been considerable, and his ideal to make the visual arts as accessible as Pop music, has been achieved. Despite his recently announced retirement he is still creating works of art, it’s just now he doesn’t intend on being under the watchful eye of the art world. Alkayat, Z (2010)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alkayat,Z. ( 2010) Blakes Progress . Artists and Illustrators. Dec 2010.p.14

Grunenberg, C and Sillars , L (2007) Peter Blake a Retrospective. Liverpool:
Tate Liverpool.

Lambirth, A (1997) Beatle fan who still has fairies at the bottom of his garden. The independent. Tuesday 2nd December 1997

Mitchell, W.J.T , (1994) Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Osterwold, T (2003) Pop Art .Koln: Taschen

Tate Liverpool (2007) Peter Blake A Retrospective, the National Gallery[online], Available from:
https://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/peterblake/exhibitionguide6.shtm) [accessed 20th Jan 2011]

Wroe, N (2006) The Bigger Picture. The Guardian. Saturday 21st Jan 2006.

artists statement

ARTISTS STATEMENT by Laura Strong (402296)

The need to paint and draw has been with me from a very early age and the need to create is more of a way of life to me than a pastime. It has however become an increasingly important aspect of my life as I have become older.
I am also very interested in photography, and I find that the combination of photography and painting often works well together. I use my camera as a tool to collect images as reference points for my paintings and by using my camera I can also experiment with unusual angles and close up abstractions. These can also be manipulated within photoshop, which can quite often further influence my painting. Because I use the viewpoint of a lens as a starting point, it is also the reason why I am keen not to produce a photographic reproduction, and in a painting I attempt to try and capture something beyond what the camera lens can capture, and my aim is to create my own personal response to the subject, to manipulate the colours and attempt to recreate a more fanciful composition. The photograph is only ever used as a starting point in a creative journey.
With this in mind I find I am often wavering between abstract qualities and the more representational elements in my paintings, and I find that I do like the freedom to be able to combine both in my work. My aim is often to create an abstract or dreamlike quality within my painting, and to explore the imagination and therefore push the idea of what is real and what is not real.
One of the artists that I feel has particularly influenced me is Marc Chagall. I find his work leaps across the boundaries of reality and the world of the imagination. His work has a poetic dreamlike feel to it and is often quite humorous and light hearted. His painting s often have a childlike quality to them, which is something that I find myself increasingly try to recapture.
As a child my paintings were often created with abandon. They were painted freely and there was no fear attached to them, they were painted or drawn because I loved doing it. As I have grown older, although I still love painting , I find myself attempting to free myself of the tightness that sometimes creeps into my work, and paint in a more loose and expressive style.


One of the most challenging things I find about painting is the need to create a work in my own distinct and personal way. There are many artists who I have found to be inspirational on my learning journey and there are many styles and techniques that have been useful lessons in helping me to find my own voice. I have found that the use of colour plays a major part in my work, with the work of Matisse, Franz Marc and Paul Klee being major influences in a lot of my work. I like to use colour with the aim of creating a strong visual impact, often building up areas with thin translucent washes. My use of colour is often strong and bold and I am not afraid to experiment with unusual colour combinations to create an impact if the subject calls for it. I am open to experiment and I often work on ideas using different media, including collage, without an end painting in mind, just to see how things turn out and just for the love of doing it. This for me, is an important process, as quite often it will lead to interesting techniques that can be used in future paintings.
In studying painting I am beginning to feel that the more I know, the more challenging a painting becomes. I see every new painting as a challenge, and a chance to try and tackle something new and experiment with different techniques. Each stage of a painting presents different challenges, and I can never be sure how a painting is going to develop and turn out. It is not unusual that as the painting evolves the original ideas may change, this is part of the creative process, and so although I try to plan in advance, quite often it doesn’t turn out quite the way that I first imagined.
The subjects that I am interested in painting are varied. I find exciting subjects in anything from landscapes to still life to more figurative art. But I find the underlying theme is to try and capture something that is beyond realism and sits in the realms of the imagination. At the moment I feel that my style is constantly evolving. At this moment in time I am becoming interested in exploring the mystical and more fantastical elements within the mundane. My aim is to try and produce something that is beautiful, even if the subject matter is not considered especially interesting or pleasant; I find it is exciting to apply vibrant colours and incorporate textures and /or collage to the image and to create something that is aesthetically pleasing even if the subject matter is not particularly beautiful.

Finished painting.

This is the final painting. I am reasonably happy with the outcome of the painting and I think I have managed to create the nostalgic and dreamlike atmosphere that I wanted to try and capture.
I am also pleased with the final colours that I have used. I have kept to a limited palette and have mixed the colours . This has gone towards creating a more balanced feel to the painting as very few have been used straight from the tube. Most of the paint consists of several thin glazes of translucent colours built up on top of each other, this has helped produce an interesting depth to the colour instead of one flat tone. I feel it works particularly well for the castle .

One of the problems I had was making the dragon and castle part of the painting, I wanted to show the spark of a childs imagination and in creating this there were times when I doubted whether this was actually working, there was a kind of seperateness and disparity between all the elements of the painting and it was hard to work out the remedy . The smaller colour studies seemed to work, yet when painted larger I lost a bit of confidence with the idea.
This I have found is something that is occurring more and more with me . It seems the more I learn the harder it becomes. There is always so much to consider and I am my own worst critic . I very nearly gave up at this point and left the painting for a few days and thought on it a while .
I didn't want to completely disregard the painting as there are elements that I really like, but there were parts that needed a bit of work.
The dragon felt too separate for a start, I didn't want it to be REAL, as it is a figment of imagination so it seemed the best way to deal with this was manipulate the positioning, and by running a translucent wash over the boys leg it helped to create a connection between the two characters. I also used the same idea to create the castle .By running the colours into the background and creating subtle linework in white for some of the turrets helped to add to feeling of imagination .

My tutor agreed with me about the disparity between the separate elements of the painting.She suggested that I look through some of my previous workings as there were ways of bringing the whole painting together
I have taken another look and have tried a few things that I think have gone some way to solve this problem. The dragons tale I have wound over and through the boys legs which has helped draw the eye into the painting and therefore helps to create a link with the foreground .
The linking of the castle, dragon and boy has been a challenge, I have decided to very subtly paint the castle across the whole background and with subtle use of line incorporate the three images together as though they are all merging together. The ethereal nature of the painting allows for a subtle use of line to suggest and allows the imagination to do the work .

A complete change of media use this time. I have used photoshop for my colour studies. Photoshop is such a useful tool, although the mouse control can take a bit of getting used to, it has enabled me to scan in the original sketch and then I can experiment with the different colour schemes.

Here I have gone for two different palettes, a more vibrant and colourful version, and a toned down pastel image.

I actually quite liked the brighter palette more than I thought I would, but because I know that it is probably more of a personal choice for me to be drawn towards strong colours. I think that the dreamlike effect that I am after is actually better achieved with the more muted and pastel shades.

I am unsure also at this point as to the final position of the dragons tail and have tried a couple of positions in photoshop.

childhood second painting colour study

This is the first colour study . i am reasonably happy with the composition of the previous tonal sketch albeit for a little tweaking in places, and now I need to decide on the colour palette. I think that I will probably try and aim for painting in more pastel shades for this painting as I think it will add to the overall feeling of dream and imagination. I need to do a couple more colour studies though to make sure that this is the best idea before I fully make my mind up.

Lady bird books and Grayson Perry

The theme of fairy tales has been investigated and painted by many artists including Paula Rego. Her prints show a darker and sinister view of the traditional fairy tales and rhymes, and they are indeed often horror stories. Fairy stories are dark and are often told to children to keep them in line . The natural imagination of a child will happily ingest the stories and imagery however dark they may be. When I was a child I did not consider the stories of Hansel and Gretal and Little Red Riding Hood for example, to be horrific . I loved the fairy stories it is only as I have become older that I realise that they were actually quite horrific.

For my painting I want to create a more nostalgic and wistful feel, that is reminiscent of the feelings and imagination of my own childhood. I want to try and capture a softness and dreamy appearance.

My research has lead me to look at some books from my own childhood. The ones that I remember with the most nostalgia are the Ladybird books. The illustrations and paintings in these books, although they are quite dated they are exactly the kind of style that I am interested in for this project. It reminds me of my childhood when I would read these fairy tales and stories, the pictures just remind of a certain time in my life which has long gone .

In researching some of the artists who created the book illustrations , I have found many of them have been trained at the RCA and taught by the artist Bomberg.

The artist CF Tunnicliffe who is an accomplished wildlife and landscape artist is among the artists who created works for Ladybird.

Another artist who is much more contemporary, that I particularly like the works of is, Grayson Perry. He is a ceramacist but the motifs and drawings on his pots are very contraversial. He has responded to his own life by creating stories on his pots, tackling overtly sexual fetishes to transvestism. It may seem a strange connection at first between his works and the works of artists in the Ladybird books. But to me the connection is about nostalgia. His work is very much based upon his own memories and he tackles issues that are shocking and possibly distateful to a lot of people but the way that they are painted onto the pots they come across as nostalgic ,and pretty even if the images themselves are most definately not . The particular images that I am referring to for this project, are a couple of pots that he produced in the mid nineties and early 2000 . The first pot is called Plight of the Sensitive Child (2003). Perry quotes,

"This pot shows a London landscape around the North Circular.Its about the way we sentimentalize children on the one hand and demonize them on the other. Its about the horrors of growing up and how if you have any kind of sensitivity, peer pressure is a horrible thing that will beat it out of you."(p92)

The images show idyllic little girls dressed up in pretty dresses doing things that every parent fears there child will get up to. Drug taking, stealing cars and and killing each other.

The second pot is called Peasants with Fridge Freezers (1995)

This pot is based upon what was happening during the nineties in Yugoslavia. Perry was listening to a news report that was trying to draw attention to the fact that the people who were massacring each other were in fact Europeans like us, who came from homes with fridge freezers. As if the fridge freezer was a symbol of our civilised society and cultures. It was an analogy that was supposed to draw parallels with our lives and the lives of the people In Yugoslavia who were murdering their own neighbours, just because they believed in different things. (p.74)

The background of the pot is covered in the motifs of the 20th Century. Macdonalds, Coca Cola , Walkers and Marlboro. That places us very much in the now .

These different approaches to aspects of childhood are interesting and influential in my own work ,for this particular project , both in style and concept .

Throughout this course I have found myself being drawn towards investigating themes that are dreamlike and of the the imagination. Inspired by artists such as Redon and Chagall I am keen on portraying the dreamlike themes of the imagination. So for this final painting I have decided to paint a scene inspired by fairy tales. Thus returning to my original ideas , I often find that I go full circle with my ideas, after a time of investigating and experimenting with many ideas I find myself returning to the original one, with a bit of a twist to it.

The above drawing and colour study are a couple of ideas for the composition of the study.

Ideas for my second childhood painting

Again for this painting I have a lot of ideas and it is a case of working through them all and getting a clear idea of what message I want to portray.

I am at the moment thinking along themes of childhood imagination again. I have touched upom this idea previously and I think that it is an interesting theme to use. I have some studies that I have previously posted , that I am going to revisit and maybe rework.

I have always loved the way little children manage to lose themselves so completely when they play make believe games and dressing up.

In these studies I have used my son as the model .When he was younger he used to dress himself up in anything that was to hand, a wooden spoon would become a weapon, and a kitchen colander would become a helmet.

I have experimented again with lifting images and collaging them into the image. Both the images have a political message of war and imperialism. It seeks to portray the contrast of the innocent childhood games of soldiers, with the real life war that that children who grow up to become soldiers.

Its a serious piece and I am in two minds still as to what direction I want to go . I am also still interested in the investigation of fairy tales.

finished painting

This is the finished painting . I have played around with the size and final positioning of the child. This was quite tricky actually, because although I wanted the child to be a major focal point, at the same time I wanted to be able to convey the feeling of smallness and vulnerability of a small child in a grown up world. To help overcome this I have painted in a path to lead the eye from the child into the tower blocks and fencing.

The painting has been inspired by the ideas of a Paula Rego and Nancy Spero. I feel both artists work are narrative and although their styles are very different, they have an underlying message which the viewer can decide upon, and it is left up to the viewer to make their own interpretations.

In this painting I feel there are many messages. To me its about the increasing detachment that children have to the natural world, and how much they miss out on natural beauty when the emphasis seems to be on the destruction of the natural environment . Its also about the loneliness within a huge city, and the smallness of a child, and the natural curiosity and wonder of a child over a small wild flower which has managed to grow and survive despite the environment that it is growing in. It could be interpreted as strength in the face of adversity.

Its not so much a realistic interpretation so therefore I have tried to manipulate the fencing and buildings so that they loom over the child to help create an almost sinister space, whilst the foreground with the child and bright flower add a sense of hope to the place....

I decided to use texture as it helped to break up the colours and added further interest to the foreground . The tower blocks were originally collaged on using newspaper, which actually wasn't as successful as I originally hoped as the image was not dark enough, in this event the newsprint was lost underneath the layers of paint. You can just about see it in places, which I think adds a bit more interest to the image.

I am aware that throughout this painting I have chopped and changed my ideas and the thinking throughout, and although it is good to have lots of ideas to work with it can be a little confusing to fine tune the final idea into a finished painting. I also feel that I have got a wealth of ideas and sketches that could well be used for a further investigation at a later time.

For my second painting I think I would like to investigate a different aspect on childhood.