Peter Blake: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Peter Blake stands at the hinge where British Pop Art met the record sleeve: a Royal College of Art painter who loved fairground lettering, wrestling posters and badge-covered denim as much as he loved Victorian ephemera. This mix traces the Independent Group precursors, the collage ghosts behind his boxed assemblages, his RCA generation, and the pop music world he fed and drew from.

The Kynda mix for Peter Blake

• Key Influence · Just What Is It That Makes Today's Home So Different, So Appealing? by Richard Hamilton (1956). Hamilton's collage for the Whitechapel exhibition 'This Is Tomorrow' is the founding image of British Pop, assembled from American magazine advertising at the moment Blake was finishing at the Royal College of Art. Hamilton and the Independent Group established that mass-media imagery was legitimate painting subject matter, the premise on which Blake built his pin-ups, wrestlers and shop-front pictures throughout the later 1950s..
• Influencia Obscura · Soap Bubble Set by Joseph Cornell (1936). Cornell's glass-fronted boxes — clay pipes, maps, cut engravings, Victorian relics — are the quiet precedent for Blake's small, nostalgic assemblage constructions and his lifelong magpie collecting. Cornell worked from Queens obscurity with no art training, building shrines from junk-shop finds; Blake's doors, cupboards and souvenir-laden panels share that reliquary instinct, sentiment handled as seriously as formal composition.
• Local Roots · Identi-Kit Man by Derek Boshier (1962). Boshier was part of the Royal College of Art painting cohort of 1959-62 alongside Blake's circle in London, the group whose work Ken Russell filmed for the BBC's 'Pop Goes the Easel' in 1962 — a programme featuring Blake himself. Boshier's toothpaste-and-advertising imagery shows the same South Kensington studio culture turning consumer graphics into painting at precisely the same moment.
• Beyond the Medium · Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles (1967). Blake co-designed the famous sleeve, but the traffic ran both ways: pop music was already his subject, from pictures incorporating teen-magazine singers to his fascination with fan ephemera. Commissioned through gallerist Robert Fraser, the Chelsea photo session with Michael Cooper turned Blake's collage instinct into the most reproduced image in record history and permanently fused fine art with the LP cover.
• Peer · A Bigger Splash by David Hockney (1967). Hockney was at the Royal College of Art in Blake's immediate orbit and became the other great popular face of British painting in the 1960s, sharing dealers, exhibitions and the Pop label Blake always treated warily. Both married figurative accessibility to serious craft and both moved between painting, printmaking and illustration, becoming artists the general British public could actually name.
• From the Canon · On the Balcony by Peter Blake (1955). Painted as a Royal College of Art student and completed in 1957, this dense panel of figures holding badges, magazines, Royal Family photographs and a reproduction of Manet's balcony picture is Blake's entire method in embryo: a painted collage of popular imagery that treats art history and cheap print as equals. It explains the Sgt. Pepper sleeve a decade before he made it.
• Key Collaborator · Donuts, Coffee Cups and Comic by Jann Haworth (1962). The American-born sculptor married Blake in 1963 and co-created the Sgt. Pepper sleeve with him, sharing the Grammy for its design; her soft sculpture practice supplied the tableau's three-dimensional elements and its doll-like figures. This early stuffed-fabric work shows the independent craft — sewn, tactile, pop-domestic — that she brought to the collaboration before their separation in 1979.
• Legacy · The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst (1991). Hirst has openly admired Blake, and the two worked together on charity and publishing projects as well as sharing the dealer-driven, press-friendly model of British art celebrity. Blake's precedent — presenting real objects, courting popular audiences, designing record sleeves — mapped the route the Young British Artists took from art school to mass recognition in the 1990s.

What influenced Peter Blake

• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. placeholder “He co-created the sleeve design for the Beatles ' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band .” (Wikipedia)
• 24 Nights by Eric Clapton. Blake painted artwork for Clapton's live album. “24 Nights is a unique collaboration between Eric Clapton, Peter Blake, Derek Taylor and fine press publisher Genesis Publications commemorating Eric Clapton’s record 24-night performance at the Royal Albert Hall in 1991.” (Vintage Guitar)
• I Still Do by Eric Clapton. Blake designed artwork for Clapton's studio album. “The portrait of Clapton on the cover of the record was painted by the British artist Peter Blake, who also was responsible for staging the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” (Stereo Embers Magazine)
• William Shakespeare (1564). Blake's work featured characters from Shakespeare. “Blake had already been working on literary subjects including Lewis Carroll and Shakespeare, and was intrigued that no other artist, apart from Swansea-born Ceri Richards , had attempted any significant rendering of Thomas's work.” (The Guardian)
• Vivienne Westwood (1941). Peter Blake included Westwood in his reworked Sgt. Pepper album cover artwork. “As well as Vivienne Westwood, cartoonist and comic illustrator Martin Newman attended the school and one of the school's teachers, Peter Blake, subsequently went on to design the infamous cover art for The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely He…” (Harrow Online)
• Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas (1954). Blake made illustrations inspired by Under Milk Wood. “As soon as I decided to illustrate Under Milk Wood, I researched it, read it and listened to it again and again. I still play it a couple of times a week and read it once a month.” (Waddington Custot)
• Face Dances by The Who. Blake designed the sleeve for the Who's album. “Pete Townshend announces that the cover of the new Who album will be designed by Sir Peter Blake. Blake also designed the cover of 1981’s Face Dances album.” (The Who)
• Stop the Clocks by Oasis. Blake designed the album cover. “Noel appeared in this weeks NME to talk about Stop The Clocks, and what tracks "should have made it, but didn't". Also an interview with Sir Peter Blake, designer of the cover art, talking about what inspired it's content.” (Oasis Interviews Archive)
• WHO by The Who. Blake designed the sleeve for the Who's 2019 album. “With an album cover designed by Sir Peter Blake, WHO includes eleven tracks, ten written by Pete Townshend plus ‘Break The News’ composed by Pete’s brother Simon.” (The Who)
• That Lucky Old Sun by Brian Wilson. The bibliography credits Blake with prints associated with Wilson's work. “This artwork is about Brian looking at somewhere like Venice Beach. It's Brian's California, which I'm very happy to make visual.” (Genesis Publications)
• Alexander McQueen (1969). Blake included McQueen in a reimagined version of his famous album cover art. “In 2012, McQueen was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover” (Wikipedia)
• Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll (1871). Blake painted illustrations for Carroll's book. “In the early 1970s, he made a set of watercolour paintings to illustrate Lewis Carroll 's Through the Looking-Glass using a young artist, Celia Wanless, as the model for Alice” (Wikipedia)
• Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll (1871). Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (Lewis Carroll) — culture for Peter Blake “In the early 1970s, he made a set of watercolour paintings to illustrate Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass using a young artist, Celia Wanless, as the model for Alice and in 1975 he was a founder of the Brotherhood of Ruralists.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Sweet Child by Pentangle. Blake designed the sleeve for Pentangle's album. “He designed the sleeves for Pentangle 's Sweet Child , The Who 's Face Dances (1981), which features portraits of the band by a number of artists, and 38 years later, The Who 's WHO (2019).” (Wikipedia)
• Caroline, No by Brian Wilson. Blake compares the song’s sound collage with his own visual working method. “In some of Brian's earlier songs he was using sounds the same way. "Caroline, No", ends with the sound of a passing train and then a dog barking in the distance. It's very much a "sound collage" and this is a similar way of working.” (Genesis Publications)
• Portrait of a Young Man by Hans Memling. Blake included Memling's painting in his portrait of Waddington. “In 1999, Blake painted Leslie Waddington with Portrait of a Young Man by Hans Memling .” (Wikipedia)
• Stanley Road by Paul Weller. Blake made the sleeve for Weller's album. “Blake made sleeves for the Band Aid single, " Do They Know It's Christmas? " (1984), Paul Weller 's Stanley Road (1995) and the Ian Dury tribute album Brand New Boots and Panties (2001; Blake was Dury's tutor at Walthamstow School of Art…” (Wikipedia)
• Brand New Boots and Panties. Blake made the sleeve for the Ian Dury tribute album. “Blake made sleeves for the Band Aid single, " Do They Know It's Christmas? " (1984), Paul Weller 's Stanley Road (1995) and the Ian Dury tribute album Brand New Boots and Panties (2001; Blake was Dury's tutor at Walthamstow School of Art…” (Wikipedia)
• Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley (1956). Heartbreak Hotel (Elvis Presley) — culture for Peter Blake “At the "Pop Art in Changing Britain" exhibit and as reported by The Telegraph on 21 February 2018, his Girls with Their Hero, a 1959 painting of facets of Elvis Presley was said to have "fashioned a highly personal form of Pop Art, infus…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Definitely Maybe by Oasis (1994). Blake names Definitely Maybe as a reference for his Stop the Clocks cover. “It's using the mystery of Definitely Maybe and running away with it.” (Wikipedia)
• Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid. Blake made the sleeve for Band Aid's single. “Blake made sleeves for the Band Aid single, " Do They Know It's Christmas? " (1984), Paul Weller 's Stanley Road (1995) and the Ian Dury tribute album Brand New Boots and Panties (2001; Blake was Dury's tutor at Walthamstow School of Art…” (Wikipedia)
• Das Undbild by Kurt Schwitters (1919). Das Undbild (Kurt Schwitters) — ghost for Peter Blake (wikidata.org)
• Soap Bubble Set by Joseph Cornell (1936). Soap Bubble Set (Joseph Cornell) — ghost for Peter Blake (wikidata.org)
• I was a Rich Man's Plaything by Eduardo Paolozzi (1947). I was a Rich Man's Plaything (Eduardo Paolozzi) — titan for Peter Blake (wikidata.org)
• Just What Is It That Makes Today's Home So Different, So Appealing? by Richard Hamilton (1956). Just What Is It That Makes Today's Home So Different, So Appealing? (Richard Hamilton) — titan for Peter Blake “The success of This Is Tomorrow secured Hamilton further teaching assignments in particular at the Royal College of Art from 1957 to 1961, where he promoted David Hockney and Peter Blake.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Retroactive I by Robert Rauschenberg (1963). Retroactive I (Robert Rauschenberg) — titan for Peter Blake

Peers and kindred spirits

• Pete Townshend. Blake and Townshend signed an edition of Blake's commemorative artwork. “Pete Townshend announces that the cover of the new Who album will be designed by Sir Peter Blake. Blake also designed the cover of 1981’s Face Dances album.” (The Who)
• Pauline Boty. Blake and Boty appeared in the same film on Pop art. (also via The Only Blonde in the World) “He came to wider public attention when, along with Pauline Boty , Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips , he featured in Ken Russell 's Monitor film on pop art, Pop Goes the Easel , broadcast on BBC television in 1962.” (Wikipedia)
• Derek Boshier. Blake and Boshier appeared in the same film on Pop art. (also via Identi-Kit Man) “He came to wider public attention when, along with Pauline Boty , Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips , he featured in Ken Russell 's Monitor film on pop art, Pop Goes the Easel , broadcast on BBC television in 1962.” (Wikipedia)
• David Hockney (1937). Blake exhibited alongside Hockney in 1961. (also via A Bigger Splash) “In the "Young Contemporaries" exhibition of 1961 in which he exhibited alongside David Hockney and R. B. Kitaj , he was first identified with the emerging British Pop Art movement.” (Wikipedia)
• Royal Academy of Arts. Blake became a Royal Academician. “Peter is an elected member of the Royal Academy, an associate artist of The National Gallery and, in 2003, more than 40 years after his first solo exhibition, was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen.” (Genesis Publications)
• Jann Haworth. Blake and Haworth designed the Sgt. Pepper sleeve together. (also via Donuts, Coffee Cups and Comic) “He designed the sleeve for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with his wife Jann Haworth , the American-born artist whom he married in 1963 and divorced in 1979.” (Wikipedia)
• Pop Art. The text places Blake in the Pop art movement. “Blake is a prominent figure in the pop art movement.” (Wikipedia)
• Walthamstow School of Art. Blake was a tutor at Walthamstow School of Art. “Blake was Dury's tutor at Walthamstow School of Art in the early 60s” (Wikipedia)
• Identi-Kit Man by Derek Boshier (1962). Identi-Kit Man (Derek Boshier) — geography for Peter Blake “He came to wider public attention when, along with Pauline Boty, Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips, he featured in Ken Russell's Monitor film on pop art, Pop Goes the Easel, broadcast on BBC television in 1962.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• R. B. Kitaj. Blake exhibited alongside Kitaj in 1961. (also via The Ohio Gang) “In the "Young Contemporaries" exhibition of 1961 in which he exhibited alongside David Hockney and R. B. Kitaj , he was first identified with the emerging British Pop Art movement.” (Wikipedia)
• The Only Blonde in the World by Pauline Boty (1963). The Only Blonde in the World (Pauline Boty) — peer for Peter Blake “He came to wider public attention when, along with Pauline Boty, Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips, he featured in Ken Russell's Monitor film on pop art, Pop Goes the Easel, broadcast on BBC television in 1962.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Brotherhood of Ruralists. Blake helped found the Brotherhood of Ruralists. “in 1975 he was a founder of the Brotherhood of Ruralists .” (Wikipedia)
• Peter Phillips. Blake and Phillips appeared in the same film on Pop art. “He came to wider public attention when, along with Pauline Boty , Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips , he featured in Ken Russell 's Monitor film on pop art, Pop Goes the Easel , broadcast on BBC television in 1962.” (Wikipedia)
• The Who Sell Out by The Who (1967). The Who Sell Out (The Who) — collaborator for Peter Blake “He designed the sleeves for Pentangle's Sweet Child, The Who's Face Dances (1981), which features portraits of the band by a number of artists, and 38 years later, The Who's WHO (2019).” (en.wikipedia.org)
• A Bigger Splash by David Hockney (1967). A Bigger Splash (David Hockney) — peer for Peter Blake “In the "Young Contemporaries" exhibition of 1961 in which he exhibited alongside David Hockney and R.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Donuts, Coffee Cups and Comic by Jann Haworth (1962). Donuts, Coffee Cups and Comic (Jann Haworth) — collaborator for Peter Blake “Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with his wife Jann Haworth, the American-born artist whom he married in 1963 and divorced in 1979.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Ohio Gang by R. B. Kitaj (1964). The Ohio Gang (R. B. Kitaj) — peer for Peter Blake
• Pottery by Patrick Caulfield (1969). Pottery (Patrick Caulfield) — geography for Peter Blake
• Blinds & Shutters by Michael Cooper (1989). Blinds & Shutters (Michael Cooper) — collaborator for Peter Blake
• Hermaphrodite by Allen Jones (1963). Hermaphrodite (Allen Jones) — geography for Peter Blake

Who Peter Blake influenced

• Ian Dury. Blake taught Dury at art school. “Blake was Dury's tutor at Walthamstow School of Art in the early 60s” (Wikipedia)
• The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst (1991). The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (Damien Hirst) — legacy for Peter Blake “In 2012, Hirst was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his album cover for the Beatles' Sgt.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Walthamstow Tapestry by Grayson Perry (2009). The Walthamstow Tapestry (Grayson Perry) — legacy for Peter Blake “In 2012, Perry was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork — the Beatles' Sgt.” (en.wikipedia.org)