Cathy's Art Diary

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 ...

Fascinating exhibition at Pallant House in Chichester looking at work relating to pop music by Peter Blake. I found this very interesting as I must admit my knowledge of Peter Blake’s work in this field didn’t extend much further than Sergeant Pepper. I hadn’t even realised he had done the cover design for Band Aid, sorry! However now I know a lot more. I was particularly interest that he had taught Ian Dury and that this had led to a life long friendship. I was very moved to see Dury’s rhythm stick as designed by Blake. Going back to Sergeant Pepper again it was lovely to see items which had been included in the iconic picture such a the small Snow White figure. Reviews Independent