3 February 2005

Sir Peter Blake RA
Born in 1932, Peter Blake attended Gravesend School of Art and then the Royal College. In 1960 he started teaching at St Martin’s School of Art until 1962. Subsequently, he taught at the Harrow School of Art until 1963, and at the Walthamstow School of Art from 1963 to 1964. From 1964 to 1976 Peter Blake taught at the Royal College of Art.

In 1961 Peter Blake presented himself as a disciple of popular culture. The definition of self through the identity of one’s heroes was an expression of Sixties culture that reached a climax in the cover art conceived by Peter Blake for the Beatles’ 1967 Sgt Pepper album. This LP album cover was the archetype of Blake’s assemblage style. The artist proof print was taken from the original artwork under the direction of the artist for this gallery. It is exclusively on public display here.

On the 4th February 1962 the inaugural edition of the first Sunday colour supplement – The Sunday Times Colour Magazine – included a feature on Peter Blake, ‘Pioneer Of Pop Art’. In the Sixties, Ken Russell’s Pop Goes the Easel, Lawrence Alloway’s British Art Today, Lord Snowdon’s Private View, the Tate’s Painting & Sculpture of a Decade, and the British Council’s London, The New Scene, all confirmed that Britain was the international art centre to watch.

Peter Blake is an artist, a collagist and a collector. Collecting, like collage, demands the bringing together of disparate objects. Peter Blake regards his own studio as “essentially a big collage”, an ever-changing environment in which new configurations of objects can be discovered around every corner. There he creates artworks based on intentionally popular themes, through to designs for record and book covers each aimed at a mass audience. As a collection itself, the Sir Peter Blake RA Music Art Gallery is a fitting tribute to the work of the artist in popular culture.

Peter Blake continues to create landmark artworks for albums by such musical luminaries as Eric Clapton and Brian Wilson. The gallery documents the influential and universally acknowledged quality of his powerful imagery by mapping the fascinating visual journey of Peter Blake with his many diverse musician friends.

Peter Blake was elected RA in 1981, awarded a CBE in 1983, and knighted in 2002. The gallery was officially opened by
Sir Peter Blake RA on Thursday 10th February 2005.

The fine art prints and proofs result from the artist working on his individual artworks with Brad Faine at Coriander Studio. The printing process employs specialist techniques, archival paper mediums and pigment inks. Framing is by Dekal, Birmingham. The collection on permanent loan was created by the efforts of Simon Warner of the School of Music with Peter R. Burness-Smith BA, LUU Entertainments Secretary 1973/4, Rockoptic, pierreOptique, the School of Music, PopuLUs, the Centre for the Study of the World’s Popular Musics at Leeds University, and the University of Leeds.