Peter Phillips
A significant and influential British Pop artist of the last century, Peter Philips creates vibrant multi-media compositions peppered with motif and images from popular culture and everyday life. He began his interest in the Pop movement alongside artists David Hockney, Allen Jones, and R.B. Kitaj while they were attending the Royal College of Arts in London. After being awarded a Harkness Fellowship in New York, Phillips relocated and began working alongside American Pop art counterparts such as James Rosenquist and Roy Lichtenstein. Unlike many of his British peers, Phillips never attempted to reject the “Pop” label, working diligently to approach his work with stylistic intention and dedication. Through the use of highly energetic patterns, including the repetition of the rainbow, Phillips’ work challenges the picture plane—juxtaposing glossy pin-ups and spare car parts with bursts of electric color.
Phillips work has been the subject of a number of important exhibitions beginning in the 1960s with group shows at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, San Francisco Museum of Art, Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, among others. His work was the subject of many solo shows including Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Centre de Cultura …
A significant and influential British Pop artist of the last century, Peter Philips creates vibrant multi-media compositions peppered with motif and images from popular culture and everyday life. He began his interest in the Pop movement alongside artists David Hockney, Allen Jones, and R.B. Kitaj while they were attending the Royal College of Arts in London. After being awarded a Harkness Fellowship in New York, Phillips relocated and began working alongside American Pop art counterparts such as James Rosenquist and Roy Lichtenstein. Unlike many of his British peers, Phillips never attempted to reject the “Pop” label, working diligently to approach his work with stylistic intention and dedication. Through the use of highly energetic patterns, including the repetition of the rainbow, Phillips’ work challenges the picture plane—juxtaposing glossy pin-ups and spare car parts with bursts of electric color.
Phillips work has been the subject of a number of important exhibitions beginning in the 1960s with group shows at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, San Francisco Museum of Art, Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, among others. His work was the subject of many solo shows including Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Centre de Cultura Sa Nostra, Palma, and Galerie Proarta, Switzerland. In 2002 he was the subject of a career retrospective at Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy.