0:00:27 > 0:00:33Pop art, the mid-20th century visual movement, shares a name with pop music
0:00:33 > 0:00:36and Peter Blake has a significant place in the history of both.
0:00:36 > 0:00:43His record sleeves, including most famously Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
0:00:43 > 0:00:49brought to a wider audience the techniques pop artists had developed - collages,
0:00:49 > 0:00:51still lives, self portraits.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55It used contemporary materials such as lapel badges,
0:00:55 > 0:00:59newspaper and magazine cuttings and advertising wrappings.
0:00:59 > 0:01:04Blake's work in pictures, album covers and book jackets
0:01:04 > 0:01:08is often inspired by his lifelong passion for collecting objects,
0:01:08 > 0:01:14'many of which featured in the show he curated at the Museum of Everything in London.'
0:01:14 > 0:01:19We're sitting in this gallery and looking around this exhibition
0:01:19 > 0:01:26of your own collections and others, a gallery-goer might now say, "There's a Peter Blake over there,"
0:01:26 > 0:01:32or, "That work looks influenced by Peter Blake," because you seem to have a very recognisable style.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36Do you have a sense of what the Peter Blake style is?
0:01:36 > 0:01:39Em, I do, yes. Absolutely.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43And I must say in recent years I've kind of...
0:01:44 > 0:01:47..taken advantage of it.
0:01:47 > 0:01:55I mean, there is a kind of Peter Blake Incorporated, almost, aspect of the work at the moment,
0:01:55 > 0:01:59where I take these motifs like a heart
0:01:59 > 0:02:02and a star and the rainbow
0:02:02 > 0:02:04and a target
0:02:04 > 0:02:08and almost claim them as my invention, which they're not.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12But I think they've become recognisable as my work.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16And I suppose these other ways of painting.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20There are a lot of clues, really, to pick up on on it.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24Some artists and writers, particularly later in their careers,
0:02:24 > 0:02:31have spoken of feeling trapped by their style, trying to get outside it to do something different.
0:02:31 > 0:02:37- Have you ever felt that frustration? - Never. I've always been so diverse, from the very beginning.
0:02:37 > 0:02:43I think if I'd been... A lot of artists change towards the end of their lives, don't they?
0:02:43 > 0:02:49Abstract expressionists become realists and realists become abstract expressionists. In a way,
0:02:49 > 0:02:53I've always encompassed a lot of things anyway.
0:02:53 > 0:02:58At the moment, I'm painting collages, making some jewellery.
0:02:58 > 0:03:05So if I ever became bored with one aspect, I'd move across to another.
0:03:05 > 0:03:11- The tag "pop art" is almost inevitably applied. If we put your name in a search...- "Godfather of".
0:03:11 > 0:03:18Godfather of, you are. Does that label ever feel irritating or limiting to you?
0:03:18 > 0:03:24Not really, because again it was a tiny section of what I've done.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27I think my take on the phrase "pop art",
0:03:27 > 0:03:29I...
0:03:29 > 0:03:36I tell a story that a group of us were having dinner in the very early '60s,
0:03:36 > 0:03:40Richard Smith, Robyn Denny, a group of painters, with Lawrence Alloway.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44And he was very much a mentor of the younger artists.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48And he was a critic very involved with the ICA.
0:03:48 > 0:03:54We were talking about what I was doing and I explained I was trying to make an art
0:03:54 > 0:03:59that was a parallel to pop music so you would read it in the same way.
0:03:59 > 0:04:05And he said, "What? A kind of pop art?" And I maintain that's how the phrase came about.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09I've been associated with it from the beginning
0:04:09 > 0:04:13and I think the problems came up when, for instance, in America
0:04:13 > 0:04:19it was never recognised really that there was any pop art in this country
0:04:19 > 0:04:23until Marco Livingstone put on a show at the RA
0:04:23 > 0:04:29and he reassessed the whole situation and suddenly put it all into perspective of what happened when.
0:04:29 > 0:04:33And I think at that point I began to get some kind of credit.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37In the way that Impressionism was originally an insult,
0:04:37 > 0:04:43it's sometimes been used in a disparaging way. People use it to suggest it's not serious art
0:04:43 > 0:04:45or high art.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48They do and perhaps it isn't.
0:04:48 > 0:04:53Certainly, it's always been a problem I've had to deal with
0:04:53 > 0:04:59that I think among my fellow painters, I think often I'm not...
0:04:59 > 0:05:03If you think of Frank Auerbach and me,
0:05:03 > 0:05:07you would think of me as a lighter artist than Frank,
0:05:07 > 0:05:10which is...I mean...
0:05:10 > 0:05:16I love his paintings and he's a friend, but you would say he's a more serious artist than me
0:05:16 > 0:05:20and I kind of accept that. As I say, I've been very diverse.
0:05:20 > 0:05:25I haven't chosen really to take that path of very high art.
0:05:25 > 0:05:31It's always had a vulgarity, it's always been populist, so I accept that.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35# Well, the joke's on me I'm off to join the circus... #
0:05:35 > 0:05:38Blake is 29.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41Of the four, he's much the most established.
0:05:41 > 0:05:48His cheerful, uncompromising comments on the modern world have been exhibited at the Royal Academy
0:05:48 > 0:05:55and he's sold pictures to all sorts of organisations in America as well as in this country.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57# ..made a crying clown out of me
0:05:58 > 0:06:01- #- Goodbye, cruel world...- #
0:06:01 > 0:06:07Pop art, it was seen as being something very modern, immediate and young,
0:06:07 > 0:06:13in that same way that there's a generation now who we call young British artists
0:06:13 > 0:06:15and they're getting older.
0:06:15 > 0:06:20Did that become a burden that you were associated with that?
0:06:20 > 0:06:27No, I think not. Because of this diversity, I've never relied on it for a living
0:06:27 > 0:06:31and I've never kind of... It's never been my one aim.
0:06:31 > 0:06:33So it wasn't a problem. Still isn't.
0:06:33 > 0:06:39A couple of your earliest serious works, Children Reading Comics, which is from 1954,
0:06:39 > 0:06:42and ABC Minors, 1955,
0:06:42 > 0:06:47they seem to a viewer to open up your childhood to us, or aspects of it,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50and what seems crucial is
0:06:50 > 0:06:56that you were drenched in popular culture, in entertainment, from very early on.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59Yeah, probably.
0:06:59 > 0:07:04I was seven when the Second World War started, so I was really a child of the war.
0:07:04 > 0:07:09I was evacuated. Until I was 14, that was childhood.
0:07:09 > 0:07:13Suddenly, the war ended, I came back to Dartford.
0:07:13 > 0:07:20I got a place at Gravesend School of Art, so adulthood started instantly when childhood stopped,
0:07:20 > 0:07:28in a curious way. So at 14 I was at art school. The first year at the Royal College of Art in 1953,
0:07:28 > 0:07:32it was compulsory that you were in the life room the whole time.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36There would have been 10 life models at any time, with crowds all around.
0:07:36 > 0:07:41And then you were released from that and suddenly you were on your own.
0:07:41 > 0:07:48It was at that point those pictures started, so in a way childhood was only five years ago.
0:07:48 > 0:07:53So I think I...in that moment when you choose where you'll go,
0:07:53 > 0:07:58I think I kind of chose to be, at that point, autobiographical.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02So the picture of the two little boys is my brother and my cousin.
0:08:02 > 0:08:10They're wearing their ABC Minors badges, so I was still painting about a childhood that was barely over.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14And it went on from there. I think I've never lost...
0:08:14 > 0:08:20- I'm still a child, in a curious way. - I want to go into the autobiography of those paintings.
0:08:20 > 0:08:26They tell us that from very early on comics in one case and cinema in the others,
0:08:26 > 0:08:33- you had a great exposure to those things.- My mum used to take me to the cinema almost every day.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36Almost, probably, from the age of two.
0:08:36 > 0:08:41So I would have been seeing Shirley Temple films
0:08:41 > 0:08:47and the big Disney films as they came out. Snow White I would have seen when it came out.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51And then as I got a little bit older she would take me in the evening.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55So I had this background of the history of cinema
0:08:55 > 0:09:01and I must have seen... There was a certain Bowery Boys film that was always the support film.
0:09:01 > 0:09:06I must have seen it 100 times. And then the interest...
0:09:06 > 0:09:11My mum and aunt took me to the professional wrestling
0:09:11 > 0:09:17in 1947, so I was 15 then. And I've had a lifelong interest in that.
0:09:17 > 0:09:22And circuses and funfairs are things I loved from a child.
0:09:22 > 0:09:27So, you know, it was that strata of entertainment that I was,
0:09:27 > 0:09:31that I started off with and have kind of stayed with.
0:09:31 > 0:09:39And some of it comes out, the movies for example, very directly, with references to Tarzan, Wizard of Oz
0:09:39 > 0:09:43- and those kinds of films. They have stayed with you.- Very much.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47They've become even stronger. In recent years, there's been
0:09:48 > 0:09:51quite a lot of painting and things
0:09:51 > 0:09:58about the kind of phenomena of a girl moving into womanhood.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03And there are so many instances. The Wizard of Oz does it,
0:10:03 > 0:10:05Snow White does it,
0:10:05 > 0:10:12of children in puberty in danger and usually suddenly rescued.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15Dorothy wakes up and...
0:10:15 > 0:10:19And I think that's an area of life that I've been intrigued with.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23Your mother's fascination with cinema.
0:10:23 > 0:10:28It seems not excessive, but impressive that somebody would go virtually every day,
0:10:28 > 0:10:32- but she just had that fascination. - People did then.
0:10:32 > 0:10:37I think what happened was there was no entertainment during the war
0:10:37 > 0:10:43so there was an enormous surge in people going out to the cinema, football matches.
0:10:43 > 0:10:45You had crowds of 60,000 every week.
0:10:45 > 0:10:51So people were flooding back. We used to go to speedway, stock car racing.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53All these things started up again.
0:10:53 > 0:10:59Was there any sense with either of your parents of an artistic streak or anywhere in the family?
0:10:59 > 0:11:04Looking back, there was. They had no chance to go to art school.
0:11:04 > 0:11:09Mum came down from South Shields and I was born when she was 20.
0:11:09 > 0:11:14She probably came down when she was 18 and was a nurse
0:11:14 > 0:11:20and moved towards being a seamstress. And probably now would have gone to college
0:11:20 > 0:11:23and done the fashion course.
0:11:23 > 0:11:30And Dad was an electrician. He drew beautiful little drawings for us of things he was interested in,
0:11:30 > 0:11:33like steam trains and boats.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35But it's hypothetical.
0:11:35 > 0:11:41Now I think they would have gone to art school, but there wasn't the chance to.
0:11:41 > 0:11:46And I was very lucky. When I went at the age of 14,
0:11:46 > 0:11:51there were grants, the schools were opening back up. Perfect time, really.
0:11:51 > 0:11:57As soon as profiles started to be written about you, they would always say "working-class artist".
0:11:57 > 0:12:03When, growing up, did you become aware of what that meant, being working class?
0:12:03 > 0:12:05I think if one has to...
0:12:05 > 0:12:11If you contextualise it, I think I'm upper working class, whatever that might be.
0:12:11 > 0:12:16My parents worked. That accounts for that. I was never...
0:12:16 > 0:12:18We were never poor,
0:12:18 > 0:12:20really poor.
0:12:20 > 0:12:26And we lived in a nice house, so we were upper working class.
0:12:26 > 0:12:33But later on you become far more aware. When you meet really upper class posh people,
0:12:33 > 0:12:38you realise how working class you probably are. It's relative.
0:12:38 > 0:12:44As you mentioned, you were part of that particular British generation of wartime evacuees.
0:12:44 > 0:12:49Many people who that happened to have very vivid memories. Do you?
0:12:49 > 0:12:51Extraordinarily vivid.
0:12:51 > 0:12:57When war was declared on a Sunday morning and that speech was on the radio,
0:12:57 > 0:12:59there was an immediate panic.
0:12:59 > 0:13:05One person in our street had an Anderson shelter, so all the children rushed to it.
0:13:05 > 0:13:11We looked towards Germany, expecting invading armies instantly, and we were evacuated the next day.
0:13:11 > 0:13:13Unofficially.
0:13:13 > 0:13:19There was someone in Dartford who came from a little village in Essex,
0:13:19 > 0:13:25so we were evacuated to a village called Helions Bumpstead, which is almost a comedy village.
0:13:25 > 0:13:29It was next to Steeple Bumpstead, which was a comedy village name.
0:13:29 > 0:13:34It's right on the intersection of Essex, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.
0:13:34 > 0:13:41Incredibly rural and remote. And then what happened was that because we were evacuated,
0:13:41 > 0:13:47there was a curious system that you still took the examination of where you'd come from.
0:13:47 > 0:13:53So I took the examination for grammar school all by myself in Steeple Bumpstead school.
0:13:53 > 0:13:59- I didn't get in.- But it was for Kent. - Yes. My brother and sister both got into the grammar schools,
0:13:59 > 0:14:03which were very good in Dartford. I then got into the technical school
0:14:03 > 0:14:09and when I went for the interview, they said, "The art school is part of the technical school.
0:14:09 > 0:14:16"If you want to go to art school, you can pop round the corner, do a drawing exam and go there."
0:14:16 > 0:14:23So it was presented to me, at the age of 14, this whole thing of starting at a very definite point.
0:14:24 > 0:14:28I never had any plans to be an art student. It started from then.
0:14:28 > 0:14:34Another piece of luck is that you didn't specialise too soon in any one art form.
0:14:34 > 0:14:41The kind of training you got, impossible now, is you were trained in almost all available art forms.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45Yes, I did what was the last year of the Intermediate Examination.
0:14:45 > 0:14:49That had gone back since the mid-19th century.
0:14:49 > 0:14:55It's the same teaching I would have got then. You did life drawing, costumed life drawing,
0:14:55 > 0:14:59silversmithing, woodwork, stone carving,
0:14:59 > 0:15:02wood engraving,
0:15:02 > 0:15:06architecture, anatomy, and my chosen craft was Roman lettering,
0:15:06 > 0:15:09which was very much a discipline.
0:15:09 > 0:15:14So that was the Intermediate, then I did the commercial art course.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18The thing is about that, I only did half the course,
0:15:18 > 0:15:22so, in a way, even now I'm a kind of rogue designer
0:15:22 > 0:15:28because I don't...I don't know what I would have learnt in the second part.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32I did typesetting and Roman lettering and I got halfway through,
0:15:32 > 0:15:39but I do things, both as a painter and as a graphic designer, because of my background
0:15:39 > 0:15:46that if I was a real painter, I wouldn't do and if I was a real graphic designer I wouldn't do.
0:15:46 > 0:15:48Luckily, I have this rogue element.
0:15:48 > 0:15:56And also lucky, that very broad training has led, as you referred to, to the variety of your work.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59It has. Certainly in printmaking.
0:15:59 > 0:16:04I mean, both those disciplines in later life I went back to.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Having been taught wood engraving,
0:16:07 > 0:16:14in the early '70s, I retook it. I thought I'd like to do it again
0:16:14 > 0:16:20and I got books and I vaguely remembered how to hold the engraving tool.
0:16:20 > 0:16:24I got books on how to do it, I did some practice blocks
0:16:24 > 0:16:28and then I cut a portfolio called Side Show.
0:16:28 > 0:16:33They're incredibly detailed. I don't know how I did them.
0:16:33 > 0:16:38There's a strong sense in what you've said of being an accidental artist,
0:16:38 > 0:16:43other people making the decisions directing you to art, then painting.
0:16:43 > 0:16:50Was there a point at which ambition kicked in and you started to think, "I really want to do this"?
0:16:50 > 0:16:55I wanted to be a painter, once I was at art school. But I wanted to be a painter anyway.
0:16:55 > 0:17:02That's what was so exciting. My teacher said, "You'll never make a living." Not me particularly,
0:17:02 > 0:17:07but nobody at that point would make a living being a painter.
0:17:07 > 0:17:13So you'd do the commercial art course and you'd got that to fall back on.
0:17:13 > 0:17:19As the graphic designers were going through my work, I'd sent one little oil painting of my sister.
0:17:19 > 0:17:25Sir Robin Darwin happened to be sitting on that selection committee at the Royal College of Art
0:17:25 > 0:17:31and said, "I think we ought to show this work to the painting committee," and it was taken over
0:17:31 > 0:17:33and they accepted me.
0:17:33 > 0:17:38Obviously, counter histories are difficult and sometimes futile,
0:17:38 > 0:17:42but you must have reflected if you had gone to grammar school.
0:17:42 > 0:17:47Do you think it would have come out in some way, the art?
0:17:47 > 0:17:49Probably.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53I mean, who knows which direction anyone might go in?
0:17:53 > 0:17:59I was once asked what I would do if I wasn't a painter
0:17:59 > 0:18:05and after deep thought I went through maybe I would have worked in wood in some way
0:18:05 > 0:18:12and then I decided I would have been a professional wrestler. So who knows where one might have gone?
0:18:12 > 0:18:16- Are there painters who don't like painting?- Well, it's hard work.
0:18:16 > 0:18:22- I'm sure it's mentally hard as well.- Well, it's a strain.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25It's a very nerve... I mean, I haven't done it.
0:18:25 > 0:18:29Normally at home I go through a whole ritual
0:18:29 > 0:18:36where I dust the table and polish it and I lay out the paints and I get everything ready
0:18:36 > 0:18:43- and I put a record on and I walk around with it. It's like a fighter. - Build up.- You build up to it.
0:18:43 > 0:18:49When you started out, did you have a theory of art, a kind of manifesto in your head?
0:18:49 > 0:18:53- Or was it all just instinct?- I had a good backing of history of art
0:18:53 > 0:18:56by the time I started to paint.
0:18:56 > 0:19:01I knew pretty much about painting. I knew I was a figurative painter,
0:19:01 > 0:19:06I knew that I was interested in the Magic Realists in New York.
0:19:06 > 0:19:09I had my influences.
0:19:09 > 0:19:15And my fellow painters in the year ahead of me were Frank Auerbach and Joe Tilson.
0:19:15 > 0:19:20So I was also aware of the seriousness of painting.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23In my year was... was Leon Kossoff
0:19:23 > 0:19:27and then the following year was Richard Smith and Robyn Denny.
0:19:27 > 0:19:34So all around me were all these other kinds of art going on, so I was aware of the Abstract Expressionists.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37And I think if you are a painter,
0:19:37 > 0:19:42you...you automatically go where you're taken almost.
0:19:42 > 0:19:45I knew I was a realist painter.
0:19:45 > 0:19:49I always had this ambition to be an Abstract Expressionist
0:19:49 > 0:19:54and I finally dealt with it many years later and did a picture
0:19:54 > 0:19:59called Am I Too Late To Be An Abstract Expressionist?
0:19:59 > 0:20:01I tried it, splashed some paint on.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03But you...
0:20:03 > 0:20:08I suppose it's like a kind of track almost that you get onto and it leads you through.
0:20:08 > 0:20:13You almost don't make the decisions. You just find you're on a path.
0:20:13 > 0:20:19One path from the 1950s and '60s that goes through your career is the use of collage
0:20:19 > 0:20:26in many famous pieces. It seems to me that that was increasingly part of this great stream
0:20:26 > 0:20:32of competing images - TV and advertising and movies and magazines.
0:20:32 > 0:20:38And that in a way you wanted to reflect that, the kaleidoscope of images.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42I was actually told at a very specific time about collage.
0:20:42 > 0:20:46Richard Smith, who I shared a flat with, taught me about Kurt Schwitters.
0:20:46 > 0:20:53He said, "He picks up bus tickets," so for years I always included a bus ticket.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57I felt that a collage always had to have a bus ticket in it.
0:20:57 > 0:21:03But once it was offered to me as a medium, I embraced it and I'm still using it to this day.
0:21:03 > 0:21:08I think it's not easier than painting, but it's...
0:21:09 > 0:21:14In a way, it's using another material and it's using found art
0:21:14 > 0:21:18and the very early collages were exactly like Schwitters'.
0:21:18 > 0:21:23I would find a bit of wood and a bus ticket and maybe some sweet wrapping
0:21:23 > 0:21:26and make these little tiny collages.
0:21:26 > 0:21:31And it's gone on from then where now I'm making a kind of collage on the computer.
0:21:31 > 0:21:35I can't do it, but we...
0:21:35 > 0:21:42We've done a whole recent series called The Butterfly Man, six feet by five, and designed on the computer.
0:21:42 > 0:21:47- It's exactly the same technique. - You say that you can't do it,
0:21:47 > 0:21:49but you could, presumably?
0:21:49 > 0:21:55There isn't time for me to get really proficient. I don't want to just play with it. And I'm a Luddite as well.
0:21:55 > 0:22:01I don't wear a watch, don't have a mobile phone and there's no way I'll ever work a computer.
0:22:01 > 0:22:05In one of those early collages, On The Balcony,
0:22:05 > 0:22:11another thing that collages do is put art within popular culture or vice versa.
0:22:11 > 0:22:18So you have magazine covers in that and that was one thing going on in the '60s which was useful for you -
0:22:18 > 0:22:24- the rise of the magazine. - It's interesting you say it's a collage. It's a painting.
0:22:24 > 0:22:31- Oh.- No collage.- Of course!- No collage at all, but that's one of the art games I've played with myself.
0:22:32 > 0:22:38The sort of trick playing of making a collage look like a painting
0:22:38 > 0:22:42and sometimes making a painting be like a collage.
0:22:42 > 0:22:48- I know you know it's a painting... - Yes.- ..but it's interesting that you called it a collage.
0:22:48 > 0:22:53But what I was doing with that painting, it was a set subject at the Royal College of Art.
0:22:53 > 0:23:00You were given two choices. I recall that the other choice was the story of Lot, a biblical story.
0:23:00 > 0:23:07Or On The Balcony. So I researched and found all the "on the balconies" that I could
0:23:07 > 0:23:15and then presented them with three children sitting on a bench holding up magazine versions.
0:23:16 > 0:23:21Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Her Royal Majesty.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23TRUMPET FANFARE
0:23:25 > 0:23:30- #- There she goes Her Royal Majesty
0:23:30 > 0:23:32- #- She's the Queen...- #
0:23:32 > 0:23:35This picture is an oil painting.
0:23:35 > 0:23:40There are about 27 different versions of On The Balcony in it.
0:23:41 > 0:23:47When I did this picture, people said, "Why did you bother to paint them? Why didn't you stick them on?"
0:23:47 > 0:23:49You just can't win.
0:23:49 > 0:23:53So that was the reason for that particular painting,
0:23:53 > 0:24:00but by then in the Air Force it was part of my week to go to a little house on the aerodrome
0:24:00 > 0:24:06and buy Picture Post. So right from the beginning I've loved magazines, and still do.
0:24:06 > 0:24:13That's the other social subset you belong to, apart from evacuees - the National Service generation.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17Was that a happy time or just an inconvenience?
0:24:18 > 0:24:24It was an inconvenience. I'd already got in to the Royal College. I had this to look forward to.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29I didn't have an awful time. You'd be 30 men in a Nissen hut.
0:24:29 > 0:24:34There would be nights with fights and play fights and beds being turned over, pillows thrown.
0:24:34 > 0:24:40I would blissfully sleep through it. I was incredibly shy until then.
0:24:40 > 0:24:42Pathologically shy.
0:24:42 > 0:24:46And suddenly to be with 30 men, you can't be shy.
0:24:46 > 0:24:52There's no way you can be shy, so it was good for that. I met people I wouldn't have met otherwise.
0:24:52 > 0:24:58And you come out of the Second World War and we're moving into the Cold War era.
0:24:58 > 0:25:05Did you believe, as many people did at that time, that you'd end up, your generation, fighting a war?
0:25:05 > 0:25:09I was in the Air Force at the time of the Korean War.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13It was unlikely I would have gone. I was a teleprinter operator.
0:25:13 > 0:25:18I think it just overlapped. I was in from '51 to '53.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21So the possibility was there.
0:25:21 > 0:25:26And certainly the possibility that there would be a war with Russia
0:25:26 > 0:25:29was very much in the air.
0:25:29 > 0:25:35But I didn't ever think I would be fighting. Luckily, I was too young to fight in the World War
0:25:35 > 0:25:40and I never envisaged I would actually be a fighting machine.
0:25:40 > 0:25:47- And you never went to the opposite extreme of being a pacifist or conscientious objector?- No.
0:25:47 > 0:25:51And David, to his credit, David Hockney did.
0:25:51 > 0:25:56And he had horrible jobs in hospitals for his two years.
0:25:56 > 0:26:01And some of the other artists, some went to great lengths not to do it.
0:26:01 > 0:26:05There was a trick of pretending you were gay
0:26:05 > 0:26:12and a couple of people shot their toes off, I think. A lot of people pretended they were mad.
0:26:12 > 0:26:16I kind of didn't bother. I didn't want to shoot a toe off.
0:26:16 > 0:26:22I just accepted that I would do the National Service. I had the Royal College to look forward to.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26It was a missing two years, but it was OK. I travelled a bit.
0:26:26 > 0:26:34I went to Belfast, I went to some nice places in the West Country. It was OK.
0:26:34 > 0:26:40One of the key early paintings, Self-Portrait With Badges, which I've always liked a great deal,
0:26:40 > 0:26:44there are many things going on there. It's technically striking.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48You get portraits within a portrait in an almost Magritte way.
0:26:48 > 0:26:50What led you to that painting?
0:26:50 > 0:26:56I was doing it specifically to send to the John Moores competition in 1961.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00And I think the idea, in a way, was almost to present myself...
0:27:00 > 0:27:04It was going back to... to Children With Badges.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08At that point, an adult wouldn't have worn a collection of badges.
0:27:08 > 0:27:15They would have worn one badge, you know, if they were in the Women's Institute or something.
0:27:15 > 0:27:19I think what was interesting about it, which is the point you're making,
0:27:19 > 0:27:23is that the badges kind of added information.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27Curiously, it's false information because I only had those badges.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30I'd only collected, like, 20.
0:27:30 > 0:27:37One of them said, "I'm madly for Adlai" and I don't think I even knew who Adlai Stevenson was!
0:27:37 > 0:27:40So some of it is false information,
0:27:40 > 0:27:47but some... I like Elvis and I was holding an Elvis magazine with Elvis talking to Tuesday Weld.
0:27:47 > 0:27:52So hints about what I was interested in were coming out.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55The Elvis identification was real?
0:27:55 > 0:27:57The Elvis...
0:27:57 > 0:28:01Again, he isn't my favourite rock'n'roller.
0:28:01 > 0:28:05I prefer Chuck Berry and Little Richard and the Everly Brothers,
0:28:05 > 0:28:08but if you're painting about icons,
0:28:08 > 0:28:10you have to take the chief icon
0:28:10 > 0:28:17so if it's a blonde actress, it's got to be Marilyn Monroe.
0:28:17 > 0:28:21'If it's a young French actress, it's got to be Brigitte Bardot.'
0:28:23 > 0:28:26This is like living in Girls' Town.
0:28:30 > 0:28:37If it's a rock'n'roller, it's got to be Elvis. So I accepted that he is the main motif, the main idol.
0:28:37 > 0:28:42And then I've got a big collection of Elvis material
0:28:42 > 0:28:45and I've made quite a lot of art including him.
0:28:45 > 0:28:51One of the very early pop art pictures was two transfers that you got in Boyfriend magazine
0:28:51 > 0:28:57of Elvis and Cliff. Well, I was only a Cliff fan for about a day, I think.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00I saw him at Chiswick Empire
0:29:00 > 0:29:04when he was really young and he was brilliant.
0:29:04 > 0:29:08As soon as he did Living Doll, I stopped being a fan.
0:29:08 > 0:29:10Why such an extreme reaction?
0:29:10 > 0:29:13It was a horrible song!
0:29:14 > 0:29:20The other striking thing about that Self-Portrait With Badges is you were already 29 at the time.
0:29:20 > 0:29:23And yet you're entirely recognisable as you are now.
0:29:23 > 0:29:28Do you paint yourself slightly older or was that accurate?
0:29:28 > 0:29:30Pretty accurate.
0:29:31 > 0:29:36I think probably... Clearly, I've changed a lot,
0:29:36 > 0:29:42but I've more or less got the same hair and more or less got the same beard. It's got longer and shorter
0:29:42 > 0:29:47and it's greyer now, but I haven't changed that much.
0:29:47 > 0:29:52From very early on there are paintings that are abandoned or unfinished.
0:29:52 > 0:29:59You've always had a very fluid attitude to what is meant by completed with a painting.
0:29:59 > 0:30:04Yes, I think I've had this attitude that everything is always in progress.
0:30:04 > 0:30:06And in a curious way
0:30:06 > 0:30:11I very rarely have completed a picture to my intentions.
0:30:11 > 0:30:16If I'm doing a portrait, I would paint the eye
0:30:16 > 0:30:22and then each eyelash and then I'd get involved with whether there was a piece of dust on the eyelash.
0:30:22 > 0:30:28So it's infinitesimal. In a way, I never achieve what I set out or what I see in my mind.
0:30:28 > 0:30:32So always everything is in progress.
0:30:32 > 0:30:39I never abandon anything. There might be pictures in the studio that by now I know I'll never finish,
0:30:39 > 0:30:41but they're in progress still.
0:30:41 > 0:30:47I'll never make the decision. Only that will be decided when I stop.
0:30:47 > 0:30:53- Although you have made the decision that they won't be finished. - Well, usually they have to go.
0:30:53 > 0:30:59I mean, with Self-Portrait With Badges, Robyn Denny arrived with the van
0:30:59 > 0:31:06that was taking them all and I was still working on it. They carried it out and drove it to Liverpool.
0:31:06 > 0:31:12But if you look at the shoes in that, one is painted, the other is very loosely painted.
0:31:12 > 0:31:17There's a little strip of detail. That was all I had time to do.
0:31:17 > 0:31:24So I accepted the unfinishedness of it and I think it's become part of recognising what I do.
0:31:24 > 0:31:28A good example to me is the 1962 Beatles,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32where George Harrison isn't, in fact, finished, is he?
0:31:32 > 0:31:37None of them are, really. Again, it must have been time running out.
0:31:37 > 0:31:43What happened with that painting, in each corner there's a little white empty panel.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46My intention was to get them to autograph it.
0:31:46 > 0:31:49Paul was the first person to see it
0:31:49 > 0:31:55and without actually refusing to autograph it, he managed to leave without autographing it.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59I think he wasn't flattered by the way I painted him.
0:31:59 > 0:32:03Then there was no point in trying to get them after that.
0:32:03 > 0:32:05But it's the same phenomena.
0:32:05 > 0:32:09There are usually areas left unpainted.
0:32:09 > 0:32:17And some of the classic dates that are given at the end of a painting, it's an astonishingly wide period.
0:32:17 > 0:32:21A Mad Tea Party At Watts Tower, 1968 to 1992,
0:32:21 > 0:32:24which is 24 years, isn't it?
0:32:24 > 0:32:30- But during that period there would be years when you wouldn't go near it?- Probably.
0:32:30 > 0:32:35The longest time was the portrait of David Hockney in the Spanish interior.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38That I started
0:32:38 > 0:32:42in, I think, '64 and I think I finished that...
0:32:43 > 0:32:47..probably it was about thirty years.
0:32:47 > 0:32:52But I wouldn't be working on it all the time. Again, it's not finished!
0:32:52 > 0:32:55I could have it back and work on it some more.
0:32:55 > 0:33:01I wondered in terms of inspiration. Can it only happen while you're painting? In a restaurant,
0:33:01 > 0:33:06- you wouldn't think of a detail for a painting?- I might. I keep notebooks.
0:33:06 > 0:33:10I always carry a notebook and I take notes.
0:33:10 > 0:33:14I don't think I've ever had an uncontrollable urge
0:33:14 > 0:33:18where I've leapt from the dinner table and ran back to the studio.
0:33:18 > 0:33:22I'm sure there are artists who have. I've never done that.
0:33:22 > 0:33:26In your notebooks, you write down words or sketches?
0:33:26 > 0:33:29Yes, little drawings and lists of things.
0:33:29 > 0:33:37I've become an almost obsessive list maker and if I think of a series of words or an idea
0:33:37 > 0:33:43or something I might paint in the future, it's a memory aid, really.
0:33:43 > 0:33:49Apart from the connection with pop art, another connection that always comes up is The Beatles
0:33:49 > 0:33:54because of the painting and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
0:33:54 > 0:34:01A lot of people who hung out with The Beatles suffered the delusion they were an honorary fifth Beatle.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04Did you ever have that yourself?
0:34:05 > 0:34:10Well, I suppose, in a curious way, I'm still very close friends with Paul
0:34:10 > 0:34:14and went to his son James's birthday party last week,
0:34:14 > 0:34:21so only a couple of days ago we were round the piano having a sing-song with Paul McCartney,
0:34:21 > 0:34:25so I would count myself as a friend.
0:34:25 > 0:34:29And I talked at length to Olivia Harrison.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33If George were alive, he would be a friend.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36Ringo and I have never particularly got on.
0:34:36 > 0:34:40And John, I would say I was a friend of them, yeah.
0:34:40 > 0:34:45And John had quite a strong artistic side, didn't he?
0:34:45 > 0:34:49He did, absolutely. He was at the art school.
0:34:49 > 0:34:51The first time we met,
0:34:51 > 0:34:54in the early '60s,
0:34:54 > 0:35:00it couldn't have been long after that particular John Moores competition we talked about in '61,
0:35:00 > 0:35:06and I won the Junior Prize, which is artists under 35.
0:35:06 > 0:35:14And it came up in conversation, the painting. He said, "You shouldn't have won. Stuart Sutcliffe should."
0:35:14 > 0:35:20So right from the beginning, he was abrasive. But that was the way he was, part of his personality.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24And he was a very interesting, nice man.
0:35:24 > 0:35:28That period, the '60s and The Beatles, is now a fabled period.
0:35:28 > 0:35:34Did it feel like that at the time? Did you think these were extraordinary times?
0:35:34 > 0:35:40You were aware that exciting things were happening. It was very much a renaissance, a rebirth.
0:35:40 > 0:35:46I suppose the other answer to that is that I've never, ever done any drugs.
0:35:46 > 0:35:50I've never smoked a joint or had any drugs,
0:35:50 > 0:35:54and that was an integral part of the '60s, really.
0:35:54 > 0:35:59I remember an evening with people who were literally on an LSD trip.
0:35:59 > 0:36:05They came to my studio and said, "You've got to take LSD! Your life is incomplete."
0:36:05 > 0:36:09So I've had people begging me to take drugs and not.
0:36:09 > 0:36:12So I missed that whole aspect.
0:36:12 > 0:36:16I wondered about that. A lot of artists and musicians were tempted
0:36:16 > 0:36:22because they thought it improved their art, psychedelic art. You were never tempted at all?
0:36:23 > 0:36:26I was tempted, but I never accepted.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30And I think part of that was possibly technical.
0:36:31 > 0:36:36It was smoking. I had smoked as a kid and stopped when I was 12.
0:36:36 > 0:36:43I'd kind of forgotten how to smoke. When I was passed a joint, I was embarrassed that I'd do it wrong.
0:36:43 > 0:36:48Then, by chance, the next time I chose not to do it, but it was partly technical.
0:36:48 > 0:36:53# Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band... #
0:36:53 > 0:36:59One of the clearly iconic works, the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover,
0:36:59 > 0:37:02how did that come about?
0:37:02 > 0:37:08The Beatles had commissioned a cover already and it had been done by Simon and Marijke,
0:37:08 > 0:37:15who later painted the front of the Apple shop. It was a very psychedelic, kind of fairyland cover.
0:37:15 > 0:37:21Robert Fraser saw it and Robert was a great friend of both the Beatles and the Stones
0:37:21 > 0:37:26and was my art dealer at the gallery I was with at the time.
0:37:26 > 0:37:31And he said, "In years to come, it'll just be another psychedelic cover.
0:37:31 > 0:37:36"Why don't you do a cover with 'a fine artist'?"
0:37:36 > 0:37:41And he said, "Why don't you use one of my artists?" He recommended me.
0:37:41 > 0:37:47They'd already got the concept of being Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
0:37:47 > 0:37:53and that was to do with the fact that they felt they couldn't ever tour as The Beatles again,
0:37:53 > 0:37:59but maybe they could tour as Sgt Pepper. They knew they couldn't, but it was a concept.
0:37:59 > 0:38:04I think Paul had already had the kind of idea of them being in a park.
0:38:05 > 0:38:10And my main contribution was to add this kind of magic crowd.
0:38:10 > 0:38:17If we did it by making cut-outs and eventually using waxworks, we could choose who their fans would be.
0:38:17 > 0:38:21- I then asked John, I asked them all to give me a list of people.- Uh-huh.
0:38:21 > 0:38:27I can't remember them all. That was a guru and that's Aleister Crowley,
0:38:27 > 0:38:34- Mae West, Lenny Bruce...- Ah. - And Stockhausen. That was one of John's choices, I think.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37- WC Fields.- Who's that?
0:38:37 > 0:38:42I think it's... I'm not quite sure, but I think it's Jung, probably.
0:38:42 > 0:38:48- The whole thing has always been wreathed in mystery.- I know! - Mainly contrived.
0:38:48 > 0:38:54We didn't do it. It just... When there were rumours that Paul was dead and this was a stand-in,
0:38:54 > 0:39:01one of the rumours was that because this hand was above his head, it was the sign that he'd died.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04In fact, it's Issy Bonn waving to his fans!
0:39:04 > 0:39:06Beautiful.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11- Did you ever listen to any of the music?- I did. I was in the studio.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16Most evenings we would go in and hear what they were doing.
0:39:16 > 0:39:21I mean, you have incredible memories of going in and seeing John in the corner
0:39:21 > 0:39:25just doing the kind of hellos for one of the songs.
0:39:25 > 0:39:30Or an evening when we went into the foyer of Abbey Road
0:39:30 > 0:39:37and there was a great big carpet laid out and George was sitting round it with about 10 Indian musicians.
0:39:37 > 0:39:41And he leapt to his feet and so did they and we met them.
0:39:41 > 0:39:47We walked through and they carried on recording George's song, the Indian-inspired song.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52And one particular night, Paul said, "Come back to the house
0:39:52 > 0:39:58"and listen to this song Lovely Rita Meter Maid." So we heard it the day it was recorded.
0:39:58 > 0:40:05Particularly given John's strong views on art, when the art work was revealed to them,
0:40:05 > 0:40:07was that a tense moment?
0:40:07 > 0:40:10They didn't ever really...
0:40:10 > 0:40:15I mean, in a way, they've never said thank you. They didn't respond that much.
0:40:15 > 0:40:22We were paid £200 and Robert Fraser, who was probably stoned out of his mind anyway,
0:40:22 > 0:40:28signed the contract and signed away any rights I had. Certainly I had no royalties.
0:40:28 > 0:40:34But he also signed away the copyright, so people write to me for permission to do something
0:40:34 > 0:40:40- and I have to refer them to The Beatles' management. - Does that make you angry?- It did.
0:40:40 > 0:40:46- Over the years I've been angry. - You could have made tens of millions.- Oh, if Robert had said,
0:40:46 > 0:40:52"They'll give you a penny for each record..." I mean, Paul is a multi-multi-multi-millionaire.
0:40:52 > 0:40:54And...
0:40:54 > 0:40:59And I only once have kind of touched half a million.
0:41:00 > 0:41:05So I'm not... I suppose that is rich to a lot of people,
0:41:05 > 0:41:09but it's not compared to The Beatles. I could have been very rich.
0:41:09 > 0:41:13Do you ever talk about it with Paul?
0:41:13 > 0:41:17No. In a way, I think the friendship is more important.
0:41:17 > 0:41:23He perhaps should have talked to me, but I wasn't going to say, "Look, Paul,
0:41:23 > 0:41:27"why don't you make up for it and give me some money?"
0:41:27 > 0:41:33And now I'm resigned to it, so in a way, emotionally, it's gone. It's not a worry.
0:41:33 > 0:41:39We talked about the origins of the term pop art and it was very strongly used in America.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42I'm interested in your relationship particularly with Andy Warhol.
0:41:42 > 0:41:48There's a certain overlap with the Marilyn Monroe images. Was he an important figure?
0:41:48 > 0:41:51He wasn't an influence, no.
0:41:51 > 0:41:56We never got on. We met about eight times and he hardly spoke.
0:41:56 > 0:42:00I, believe it or not, then didn't speak that much.
0:42:00 > 0:42:06The first time, he took me all round The Factory and showed me everything that was going on.
0:42:06 > 0:42:10And the last time he came over and had a show.
0:42:10 > 0:42:13He painted a British show of dogs.
0:42:13 > 0:42:15Especially for London.
0:42:15 > 0:42:20And Michael Chow gave a dinner for him at Mr Chow's
0:42:20 > 0:42:24and we were all upstairs at the other end of the room
0:42:24 > 0:42:30and at one point Michael came over and said, "Andy said he'd love to meet you," as though we'd never met.
0:42:30 > 0:42:36I said, "Come on! We've met eight times. We've never had anything to say. I'm not going to come over."
0:42:36 > 0:42:42And now I think that was so stupid and churlish and I wish I'd gone over and said hello again.
0:42:42 > 0:42:48There's much argument even now over Warhol's reputation with detractors and defenders.
0:42:48 > 0:42:53- Where do you think he ranks artistically?- Oh, now I think he's one of the greats.
0:42:53 > 0:42:59I mean, the great icons are Andy's Warhol, Andy's Elvis,
0:42:59 > 0:43:03Lichtenstein's early battle pictures.
0:43:03 > 0:43:09And I don't much like Lichtenstein, but they are great pop art icons.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12Your British near contemporary, David Hockney,
0:43:12 > 0:43:18there's a conversation with him through your work. There are various pieces.
0:43:18 > 0:43:24That is an artistic friendship, that one.
0:43:24 > 0:43:28It's both an artistic friendship and just a friendship.
0:43:28 > 0:43:34I've done Desert Island Discs. I did it with Roy Plomley and then again with Sue Lawley.
0:43:34 > 0:43:41The first time they said, "What would you like your luxury item to be?" I said, "Can it be David Hockney?"
0:43:41 > 0:43:46They said, "A David Hockney?" I said, "No, can I take David Hockney?
0:43:46 > 0:43:52"We're good friends. We could talk about art on the island and we could draw together."
0:43:52 > 0:43:59And they said, "No, you can't take a person," So that's the level of our friendship.
0:43:59 > 0:44:01The Brotherhood of Ruralists,
0:44:01 > 0:44:05which was the second big movement you were involved with,
0:44:05 > 0:44:08Pop Art and a more formal movement...
0:44:08 > 0:44:12Was that a conscious change of direction after the '60s?
0:44:12 > 0:44:15This was the '70s. You wanted to do something different?
0:44:15 > 0:44:19It came out of that. My life is very much split into decades.
0:44:19 > 0:44:23And literally at the end of the '60s, there was...
0:44:23 > 0:44:28It wasn't a direct feeling - "oh, weren't the '60s great? Let's have a change."
0:44:28 > 0:44:33But I think people were tired and a lot of people moved out from London.
0:44:33 > 0:44:38It turned into that kind of self-sufficiency mood of the '70s.
0:44:38 > 0:44:41And we were part of that.
0:44:41 > 0:44:47I went to see David Inshaw and through David we met Graham Arnold
0:44:47 > 0:44:50who was at the college at the same time as me.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54We were having dinner one night, a group of us,
0:44:54 > 0:44:58and talking art and talking about the Pre-Raphaelites.
0:44:58 > 0:45:03I think it came up, "Which Pre-Raphaelite would you have liked to have been?"
0:45:03 > 0:45:07"I would have liked to have been John Everett Millais."
0:45:07 > 0:45:10In a way, it came out of that talking.
0:45:10 > 0:45:15We had a meal on each solstice, so in the winter we would have an indoor feast.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18In the summer, we would have a picnic.
0:45:18 > 0:45:24And finally, we actually gave it a name and became a group and had a manifesto.
0:45:24 > 0:45:29And at that point, art politically, it was very unpopular.
0:45:29 > 0:45:34Our manifesto was that love was a reason to paint, sentimentality...
0:45:34 > 0:45:39The word "sentimentality", which is a filthy word in the art world,
0:45:39 > 0:45:42was a valid reason to make a painting,
0:45:42 > 0:45:46so we got a lot of stick from the critics and we answered back.
0:45:46 > 0:45:52Brian Sewell had a concerted attack on Kitaj and Hockney and I for years.
0:45:52 > 0:45:57He seems to have eased up now, but he would write a review of somebody else
0:45:57 > 0:46:03and then end it by saying, "But they're nowhere near as bad as the Kitaj exhibition."
0:46:03 > 0:46:07He cam... You know, he had a campaign against us.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10But it was his job to. He worked for The Standard.
0:46:10 > 0:46:15I think if he wasn't nasty, he would have lost his job, but that's by the bye.
0:46:15 > 0:46:21It came to a natural end for me when Jann Haworth and I separated in '79.
0:46:21 > 0:46:25I came back to London, so by definition...
0:46:25 > 0:46:28A ruralist is a city person who moves to the country,
0:46:28 > 0:46:32so by definition, I'd come back, so I was no longer...
0:46:32 > 0:46:37- The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was quite a dangerous model to take. - Absolutely.
0:46:37 > 0:46:42- It had led to terrible sexual complication and fallings-out and everything.- Yeah.
0:46:42 > 0:46:47In a way, the Ruralists didn't quite follow that, but it got complicated.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51A series of works in the 1990s,
0:46:51 > 0:46:54Exhibition of a Rhinoceros in Venice
0:46:54 > 0:46:57and the Madonna of Venice Beach series...
0:46:57 > 0:47:01They're bringing a lot of what we talked about together.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06They bring together the two sides - your knowledge of classical art, but also modern art.
0:47:06 > 0:47:10They are a blurring of those two things or a conversation.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14I was the third artist-in-residence at the National Gallery,
0:47:14 > 0:47:18so the first thing I did was walk the whole of the National Gallery.
0:47:18 > 0:47:25There was one particular picture called Exhibition of a Rhinoceros in Venice by Longhi.
0:47:25 > 0:47:28I'd been doing the Venice Beach pictures,
0:47:28 > 0:47:32so I thought I could place it in Venice Beach, California.
0:47:32 > 0:47:38So that's a good start. I can go in on the first day and start that picture.
0:47:38 > 0:47:41So it takes... I changed the rhinoceros,
0:47:41 > 0:47:46but the first element of the crowd I copied directly from Longhi's painting.
0:47:46 > 0:47:53And they're obviously dressed in 17th century Venetian clothes with masks on,
0:47:53 > 0:47:57but the next layer of crowd is roller-skaters
0:47:57 > 0:47:59and a bunch of gay men
0:47:59 > 0:48:03who are kind of laughing at the Venetians,
0:48:03 > 0:48:09so a whole story evolved of a rhinoceros in Venice and that was a very good starting point.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13By this stage of your life as an artist, almost 60 years of work,
0:48:13 > 0:48:19is the technique pretty much established or do you come up against things that you can't do?
0:48:19 > 0:48:22Um... My actual way of painting...
0:48:22 > 0:48:25I mean, in some way, you learn the business.
0:48:25 > 0:48:30The first day you paint, you've got this stick in your hand with hairs on the end
0:48:30 > 0:48:32and you've got this surface,
0:48:32 > 0:48:38and you don't know that red and yellow, if you mix them together, make orange.
0:48:38 > 0:48:43You quickly learn the techniques. You're taught the techniques. Luckily, I was.
0:48:43 > 0:48:48So you quickly reach a point of skill and that develops,
0:48:48 > 0:48:54but with my actual painting style, I think it's developed because I've got older.
0:48:54 > 0:48:56I've got better, I think.
0:48:56 > 0:49:03And I'm very much aware now of the unfinishedness of the pictures in the '50s, '60s and '70s,
0:49:03 > 0:49:09so I do tend to complete them now to a certain level standard.
0:49:09 > 0:49:16I never attain the... the finish I see in my mind which we've talked about,
0:49:16 > 0:49:20but they're equally unfinished, if you see what I mean.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22But I've got better, I think.
0:49:22 > 0:49:28Celebrity has been one of your subjects. We live in a culture that's drenched in celebrity now,
0:49:28 > 0:49:31reality TV, blogging and so on.
0:49:32 > 0:49:36Are you alarmed by the way we've ended up in modern culture?
0:49:36 > 0:49:38Some elements of it.
0:49:38 > 0:49:43I mean, about five years ago, I saw one minute of The X Factor.
0:49:43 > 0:49:49I was so horrified by this kid being abused by these horrible people,
0:49:49 > 0:49:51verbally abused,
0:49:51 > 0:49:55I mean, people who shouldn't be auditioning anyway,
0:49:55 > 0:49:59so I very much dislike that kind of celebrity.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02I think footballers are paid too much.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05I admire their skill and I'm still a football fan,
0:50:05 > 0:50:10but I think that element of celebrity probably isn't good for them,
0:50:10 > 0:50:13so there's a whole element of, of...
0:50:13 > 0:50:19I don't know quite how to put it. ..vulgar celebrity that I don't like.
0:50:19 > 0:50:25But I adore someone like Kate Moss who is a celebrity and a character.
0:50:25 > 0:50:28So I suppose I choose my celebrities.
0:50:28 > 0:50:33There should be your level of fame you achieve either through achievement or looks
0:50:33 > 0:50:38or whatever it might be or having a good voice and the level's gone all wrong.
0:50:38 > 0:50:40People are famous who shouldn't be.
0:50:40 > 0:50:45The modern art market has become commercially huge,
0:50:45 > 0:50:48astonishing sums being paid for works of art.
0:50:48 > 0:50:53- Do you ever feel uncomfortable about that?- I've never been involved with it.
0:50:53 > 0:50:58I've always happily gone along in a kind of middle area
0:50:58 > 0:51:02where...where I've never been...
0:51:02 > 0:51:05Well, I have been broke, but I've never...
0:51:05 > 0:51:10I've always done quite well and I've never done very well.
0:51:10 > 0:51:16It's only really in the last two years that I've become financially secure,
0:51:16 > 0:51:18mainly through printmaking.
0:51:18 > 0:51:24There's an area where I can make a print and it sells and I make some money from it and that's very nice.
0:51:25 > 0:51:32The paintings have... They're just beginning to... A few have sold for a lot of money.
0:51:33 > 0:51:37So maybe I'm about to touch that area,
0:51:37 > 0:51:39but I've never been...
0:51:39 > 0:51:43It's never been a problem, earning too much.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47In general, are you competitive with other artists?
0:51:47 > 0:51:49It is a competition, yes.
0:51:49 > 0:51:54You think you're better than some people and not as good as others.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57But not now.
0:51:57 > 0:52:02I announced my retirement at the age of 65, a conceptual retirement.
0:52:02 > 0:52:04It wasn't a retirement from work,
0:52:04 > 0:52:10but it was a retirement from avarice... And jealousy was one of those things.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14So I'm now not jealous of other artists.
0:52:14 > 0:52:18To answer your question directly, in that manifesto,
0:52:18 > 0:52:23I stopped being competitive and jealous and all those art world things.
0:52:23 > 0:52:27But professionally, you're always competing.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30In the show Homage 10 x 5,
0:52:30 > 0:52:32I've chosen ten artists
0:52:32 > 0:52:36and I'm making five pieces in homage to each of them.
0:52:36 > 0:52:38One of them is Rauschenberg,
0:52:38 > 0:52:42so in a way that's about competition and respect and homage.
0:52:42 > 0:52:47When you say you've conceptually retired from things like jealousy,
0:52:47 > 0:52:53in reality, psychologically, when so-and-so gets amazing reviews or reputation
0:52:53 > 0:52:55or sells for 40 million dollars...
0:52:55 > 0:52:57I'm thrilled, I'm thrilled.
0:52:57 > 0:53:02I mean, really, something worked. I mean, a transformation happened.
0:53:03 > 0:53:08And I can't think of anyone I'm jealous of at the moment.
0:53:08 > 0:53:14- In that list of ten, Damien Hirst is in there.- Yeah. - Which would surprise some people.
0:53:14 > 0:53:20Kingsley Amis said in literature that one generation had to despise the generation that came after them,
0:53:20 > 0:53:22the old had to despise the young,
0:53:22 > 0:53:27but the YBAs which some of your generation do quite openly hate, you don't.
0:53:27 > 0:53:33It's interesting. It's an interesting question because I absolutely don't hate.
0:53:33 > 0:53:37I mean, I think I made a point of being their friend.
0:53:37 > 0:53:41I didn't need to be their friend and they didn't need me as a friend,
0:53:41 > 0:53:48but I went in the other direction to despising them and a lot of them still are my friends.
0:53:48 > 0:53:50And I felt...
0:53:50 > 0:53:54I've tried to describe it as a kind of duty almost.
0:53:54 > 0:54:00When I was a young artist, I remember when Francis Bacon, who was a friend,
0:54:00 > 0:54:04but was a bitchy old queen who yelled at me or something,
0:54:04 > 0:54:07so you remember all this stuff.
0:54:07 > 0:54:11And I decided I didn't want to not like them
0:54:11 > 0:54:18and probably went the other way and kind of befriended them and supported them. Not that they needed it.
0:54:18 > 0:54:22But Young British Artists such as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin,
0:54:22 > 0:54:25were they properly respectful towards you?
0:54:25 > 0:54:30Yeah, I think so. Damien went to Leeds to art school.
0:54:30 > 0:54:33In Leeds, they have my picture called Window
0:54:33 > 0:54:36which is a deep box
0:54:36 > 0:54:39that hangs on the wall, it has a wax head and curtains
0:54:39 > 0:54:42and pictures behind the curtains,
0:54:42 > 0:54:45so to look into it, you've got to become a voyeur
0:54:45 > 0:54:47and you've got to get very close.
0:54:47 > 0:54:51You're suddenly very aware of this wax head as a real head,
0:54:51 > 0:54:56so he'd seen that and admitted to being influenced by it.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00Yeah, I think... I don't know what they say behind my back.
0:55:00 > 0:55:04I'm sure some of them say, "Silly old fart, he's stupid," or whatever,
0:55:04 > 0:55:08but, um...no, I think there's respect, yeah.
0:55:08 > 0:55:13And having announced your conceptual retirement at the age of 65,
0:55:13 > 0:55:18do you contemplate ever actual retirement or will you just keep going?
0:55:18 > 0:55:25I'll keep going. Since then, at the age of 75, I announced that I was into my late period.
0:55:26 > 0:55:31I mean, the idea of that is that I don't want someone, when I've gone,
0:55:31 > 0:55:35deciding that my late period started whenever,
0:55:35 > 0:55:37so it's started already.
0:55:37 > 0:55:43I did have an idea to sign everything and make a stencil saying, "Late period picture number one..."
0:55:43 > 0:55:47I haven't actually done that, but again it's a kind of...
0:55:48 > 0:55:52..a realignment of my attitude to things
0:55:52 > 0:55:57and in a way, in your late period, you can go completely barmy.
0:55:57 > 0:56:01I mean, Picasso did all those extraordinary late erotic pieces,
0:56:01 > 0:56:09so I've given myself another excuse to be naughty and to do what I want to do. And I'm enjoying that.
0:56:09 > 0:56:14Do you have any specific plans as to how you'll go barmy like Picasso in your late period?
0:56:14 > 0:56:19I've done it. Yeah, I'm there. Certain things have happened already.
0:56:19 > 0:56:22Which are the barmy ones?
0:56:22 > 0:56:28Um... It's hard to be specific. I think it's a mood, rather than a particular...
0:56:28 > 0:56:31- But it's a total freedom just...? - Yeah, total freedom.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35Both mentally and psychologically and aesthetically.
0:56:35 > 0:56:39It's complete freedom from whatever the pressures were before,
0:56:39 > 0:56:41a freedom from critics, from finance.
0:56:41 > 0:56:46Luckily, I'm now financially secure, so it's a freedom from that in a way.
0:56:46 > 0:56:52And it doesn't matter what the critics say any more. It's not going to affect me any more.
0:56:52 > 0:56:56When you're young, when you've done five pictures
0:56:56 > 0:57:01and someone comes along and kicks the shit out of one of them, it is hurtful.
0:57:01 > 0:57:03Now it doesn't matter.
0:57:03 > 0:57:08How much do you care about posterity as to what critics will say in the future,
0:57:08 > 0:57:12as to which paintings will hang in which galleries?
0:57:12 > 0:57:18I'd like to be remembered, but again that little phrase sets me off on another path.
0:57:18 > 0:57:21I mean, which paintings in which galleries?
0:57:21 > 0:57:26My relationship with the Tate, I've never, ever had a picture in Tate Modern,
0:57:26 > 0:57:30unless they haven't told me.
0:57:30 > 0:57:32There was a time about a year ago,
0:57:32 > 0:57:37we went to Tate Britain and there were five shows on that I could have been in.
0:57:37 > 0:57:42There was British Pop Art In The '60s that I wasn't in.
0:57:42 > 0:57:46There was a show of figurative painting that I could have been in.
0:57:46 > 0:57:53They'd done that first show of drawings from the collection which I easily could have been in.
0:57:53 > 0:57:57I literally could have been in every category and I wasn't represented,
0:57:57 > 0:58:04so my relationship with that particular part of the art world isn't comfortable.
0:58:05 > 0:58:08I resent not being represented better.
0:58:08 > 0:58:14- Does that answer your question or was that a mad tirade? - No, it absolutely does.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17- Sir Peter Blake, thank you. - It's been a real pleasure.
0:58:35 > 0:58:40Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd 2011
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