Mary Ryan Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by English artist Peter Blake. Blake has often been called the godfather of Pop Art and his work is widely shown and collected throughout Europe. He has rarely shown in the United States; this is his third exhibition in New York since 1962. Blake will be present at the opening reception.
Though he is best known in the states for creating the album cover of The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,’ his paintings, drawings, prints and collages have focused on all aspects of popular culture from sports to music to film. Beyond being seen as iconic imagery, Blake’s work has always had a particular ability to translate the social preoccupations of the time. While immersed in pop culture, his art belongs to a long tradition of figurative realism and he has been influenced by Victorian imagery, myth, folk art, outsider art and vintage illustration.
Peter Blake: World Tour will feature 10 unique collages on paper and canvas depicting New York, Paris, Los Angeles, Venice and Tokyo. These unique mixed media pieces combine real imagery (vintage postcards and photographs) with Blake’s invented additions, transcending time and leading the viewer deep into the artist’s imagination. This body of work features “Butterfly Man,” a whimsical character who travels the world orchestrating butterflies. This exhibition also marks the debut of Blake’s newest suite of silkscreens, Paris Portfolio, also based on vintage postcards, as well as two new editions, Union Jack and Old Glory.
Blake is a relentless collector and experimenter. While all of the works in this exhibition feature imagery that has attracted Blake since the 1960s, his exploration of digital technology has added a new component to his collages. Computer scanning, manipulation, and ink jet printing happily provide Blake the ability to alter his collage imagery in ways that would not have been possible through earlier photographic techniques he used. By increasing the scale of his collage elements, Blake heightens detail and reveals new information to the viewer.
For more information please contact Jordan Karney at 212.397.0669 or info@maryryangallery.com
Born in 1932, Peter Blake studied at the Royal College of Art in the early 1950s and along with fellow students such as David Hockney and RB Kitaj, played a crucial role in the emergence of Pop Art. Blake’s first one-man exhibition was held in 1962 at the Portal Gallery, London and his first US show was that same year at New York’s Sidney Janis Gallery. Solo shows followed at the Robert Fraser Gallery (1965) and since the early ‘70s, his work has been exhibited regularly in one-man shows at Waddington Galleries and throughout the world. His first Retrospective exhibition was held as early as 1969 at the City Art Gallery, Bristol. Subsequent Retrospectives were held in 1973 at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, touring to Hamburg and Brussels and at the Tate Gallery (1983). In 1994 he was made the Third Associate Artist of the National Gallery, London. He was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1981, and was knighted in 2002. In 2007 the Tate Liverpool held a major retrospective of Blake’s work which toured to Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Spain in 2008. Blake’s own collection of art received critical acclaim and attention when featured in James Brett’s Museum of Everything, first at the Frieze art fair and then at the museum in Primrose Hill through February 2011. A solo exhibition for Blake will open at the Holburne Museum in Bath, England in May 2011.
