The Godfather of Pop Art

Fascinating talk at Charleston Farmhouse as part of the Charleston Festival with the artists Peter Blake being interviewed by the art critic Martin Gayford.

Gayford took Blake gently through his life using a series of his paintings as talking points. They talked about how Blake’s ‘arts’ as he was growing up were speedway, wrestling and fairgrounds and about his contemporaries at art college. I particularly enjoyed hearing Blake discuss his self-portrait of 1961 where he wears denim covered in badges. He described his clothes as an outfit and likened himself in the picture to a Pierrot.

He talked about moving to the country in the 1970s and founding the Brotherhood of Ruralists and about later series of pictures. He laughed that at 75 he had now entered his “late period”.

The questions of course included one on the Sergeant Pepper cover to which Blake’s reply was “I nearly got away with it.” He talked about how little he was paid for it particularly as his agent signed away the copyright.  He also talked about lecturing in Newcastle with Quintin Bell, the son of Charleston Farmhouse, and meetings between them and Lowry who was working the city at the time.