Pop as Art

So, what happens when popular music starts taking itself seriously? What happens when you actually start to think of pop music as art? A number of British pop musicians had gone to art school and had come into contact with contemporary ideas about the visual arts. Peter Townshend applied what he had learned about auto-destructive art to his performances. He and others had also been strongly attracted to artists working with the Pop Art aesthetic, including Peter Blake (who would design the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover), Eduardo Paolozzi (with whom Stuart Sutcliffe studied), R. B. Kitaj, David Hockney, and others.

Beginning with this class we will begin to look at a number of musicians who thought that what they were doing was more than banging out four beats, three chords, and a moon-June lyric. While some of this is the result of the art schools to which many of these performers were relegated as adolescents (rather than institutions of "higher" education), some of it certainly can be traced to the unlikely figure of Bob Dylan. Until 1965, his songs railed against an unjust world and warned that the times and the world were changing. Well, rock and roll was changing. That much was for certain.

Pete Townshend on Peter Blake, the Pop Artist. [Jon Bennett. "Respect." In Mojo (March 2002) 100: 60.]

In 1962, when I was at Ealing Art School doing my second year of a Foundation course, I came across some early screen prints of his. I admired his gentleness and sense of humour, but most of all his quintessential Englishness. Of course, I admire his work most of all. His lightness, sense of colour, love of pop iconography—and everything that is "pop"—can't disguise the fact that he's a wonderful draughtsman, a proper painter. I love his combination of craft and passion.

My art college experience led me away from fine art and graphics and towards semiology and cybernetic theory. When art college was interrupted by The High Numbers getting a record deal, I realised that I could express some of my more colourful ideas by combining pop music and Pop Art. I used a lot of his images for my early clothes designs for The Who—especially the Union Jack jacket and Target T-shirt that were Carnaby Street staples within a few months of my first wearing them on-stage at the Marquee Club in 1964. I borrowed freely from Peter's use of graphic icons to support youthful energy, but also to create irony in a post-war, post-Empire society.

I was disappointed when Peter had his Tate Retrospective in the '80s because some of his most important pieces were described as "Works-in-Progress" when, in fact, they just hadn't been finished in time. However, since then I've used the same technique a lot on my website.

Why not make unfinished work-in-progress visible? My admiration for him will never fade. I've met him many times. Peter was a bit of a Who fan. We both love the Everlys and were serious fans of Ian Dury, before he got famous and afterwards.

The Stones | The Kinks | The Who | The Beatles

Untitled, John Lennon (ca. 1958)

"The First Real Target," Peter Blake (1961)

"The Beach Boys," Peter Blake (1964)

"Portrait Surrounded by Artistic Devices," David Hockney (1965)

"The Masked Zebra Kid," Peter Blake (1965)

"A Bigger Splash," David Hockney (1967)


Psychedelia	Schedule	Beatles in the Studio
	21-mar-12