Peter Blake b.Dartford, Kent 1932-
Peter Blake entered the junior department of Gravesend School of Art at the age of fourteen, moving to the senior school in 1949. During the following year he was accepted for the Royal College of Art but was unable to take up his studies until 1953 because of National Service in the RAF.
He graduated not only with a First Class Diploma but the much coveted Leverhulme Research Award which he used to study popular culture traveling extensively in mainland Europe.
He is Britain’s most popular Pop Artist in the sense that he deliberately made his work financially accessible. Babe Rainbow, a screenprint on tinplate, was produced in an edition of 10,000 making it affordable to all. It is one of his most endearing images and has become an icon of the ‘Swinging 60s’.
The spectacular tableau he created for the Beatles Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album sleeve has spread his name far beyond the world of fine art.