Peter Phillips, a prominent figure in British Pop art, has died at 86. His family confirmed his death in an online statement, saying that the artist passed away on June 23rd. The family also indicated that a celebration of the artist’s life will be held in August at his gallery in Noosa, Australia.
Born in Birmingham, England, in 1939, Phillips studied at the Royal College of Art in London, where his contemporaries included David Hockney, Allen Jones, and R.B. Kitaj. Like their counterparts in the United States, these British pop artists challenged conventions of postwar art by embracing mass culture and commercial aesthetics.
Phillips’s work borrowed imagery from advertising and industrial design to create bright, saturated compositions, characterized by their frenetic forms and collage-like aesthetic. In Spectrocoupling (1972), he approximated the energy of electrical currents through haphazard geometric forms, while works like Glamour Girls (1974) layered bright pin-up imagery into grid-like formations. Other works grappling with Americana and pop culture featured portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Bridgette Bardot, as seen most prominently in For Men Only—Starring MM and BB (1961).
Phillips rose to prominence in the 1960s, and was featured in a BBC documentary titled Pop Goes the Easel alongside Peter Blake and Pauline Boty in 1962. His fame was bolstered by his inclusion in international exhibitions, including the Paris Biennale in 1963 and “Nieuwe Realisten” at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague the following year. In 1964, Phillips moved to New York, where he exhibited alongside Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and James Rosenquist.
A Phillips retrospective was held in 2002 at the Galleria Civica di Modena in Italy. The next year, the artist’s 1961 painting War/Game—a geometric composition featuring a hand holding a gun up to a mirror—was adapted for the cover of Room on Fire, the second album by American rock band the Strokes. In 2015, Phillips relocated to Australia, establishing a studio and gallery in Noosa.
In their statement, the family announced plans to launch the Peter Phillips Foundation, which will offer grants and residencies for emerging artists. A GoFundMe campaign has been established to support the initiative.
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