Bearded Lady, 1974-1978

Widely recognised as one of the most prolific artists of the Pop Art movement, Peter Blake is perhaps best known for his co-creation of the Beatles’ album cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club and the creation of the cover for the Band Aid single, ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’. The common factor uniting all of Blake’s artistic outputs is his long-standing love of icons and popular culture – he has stated: “All a country has is it’s culture; the rest is infrastructure”. One of Blake’s most popular works was a Through the Looking Glass-inspired painting titled ‘For instance now, now there’s the messenger’ - the depiction of a forlorn-looking Mad Hatter, shackled by the ankle and sitting on a stool, and just one of many of his works that paid tribute to classic English literature and folklore.