Sir Peter Blake Designs New Brit Award For 2012
Artist Sir Peter Blake The man responsible for the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band record sleeve has been invited to design the 2012 Brits award statue. Last year’s trophy was designed by fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood. This years model will be decorated in Blake’s trademark Pop Art style. His first design was turned down but we can now reveal the new sketch.”I did something and they said: ‘Could you make it a bit more pop art?'” “So it’s pop arted up.” “So it looks very much like my work,” he said. “It needed a signature and I think those symbols gave it the signature.” The event will take place in February.
In the late 1950s, Blake became one of the best known British artists working in the new genre Pop Art. His paintings from this time included imagery from advertisements, music hall entertainment, and wrestlers, often including collaged elements. Blake was included in group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and had his first solo exhibition in 1960. It was with the ‘Young Contemporaries’ exhibition of 1961 where he was exhibited alongside David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj that he was first identified with the emerging British Pop Art movement. Blake won the (1961) John Moores junior award for his work Self Portrait with Badges. He first came to wider public attention when, along with Pauline Boty, Derek Boshier and Peter Phillips, he was featured in Ken Russell’s Monitor film on pop art, Pop Goes the Easel, which was broadcast on BBC television in 1962. From 1963 Blake was represented by Robert Fraser which placed him at the centre of swinging London and brought him into contact with leading figures of popular culture.
The event will take place in February.