One of the founders of the British Pop art movement, English painter Peter Phillips died at 86 years old on June 23. His family confirmed the news in an online statement.
Born in Birmingham, England, in 1939, Phillips attended London’s Royal College of Art with the likes of David Hockney, Allen Jones, and R.B. Kitaj. There, he became one of the originators of the British Pop art movement in the 1950s and ’60s, which made such elements of pop culture as advertising, car design, science fiction comics, movies, and books its subject, in a bold push against (what the group believed to be) an elitist art world.
For his part, Phillips layered mundane images of consumer culture and mass entertainment into his vibrantly colored paintings, often with a playful twist. His 1961 canvas For Men Only — Starring MM and BB, for instance, incorporated images of Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot alongside lingerie models and abstract symbols, with a rabbit leaping across the cavas between them. The painting includes collaged elements from magazines and advertisements.
His work was exhibited at the Paris Biennale in 1963. In 1964, he was included in the era-defining exhibition “Nieuwe Realisten” at Gemeentemuseum in the Hague, which subsequently traveled to Vienna and Berlin. That same year, Phillips also traveled on a Harkness Fellowship to New York, where he lived for two years and exhibited his work alongside American Pop artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and James Rosenquist.
Over the decades, his canvases continued to be shown among global institutions, BBC films, and documentaries. A 2002 show at the Galleria Civica di Modena in Italy reintroduced the artist’s 1961 painting War/Game—the bottom part of which was adapted for the album cover of American rock band The Strokes’ second release Room on Fire (2003). In 2009, Phillips was commissioned to create a painting for the 2010 World Cup, which featured colorful abstractions of soccer balls inspired by Africa’s first time hosting the event.
In 2015, Phillips moved to Australia, where he established a studio and gallery in Noosa Hinterland.
In his honor, the family is currently raising money via GoFundMe to establish the Peter Phillips Foundation, an initiative that intends to offer grants and residency programs.
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