Since his emergence in the early 1960s as a key member of the Pop Art movement, Sir Peter Blake has been one of the best known British artists of his generation. He was born in Dartford, Kent in 1932 and studied art at Gravesend Technical College and School of Art from 1946 to 1951. Although originally a graphic design student, Blake was accepted on the painting course at the Royal College of Art in London in 1950 on the strength of his few early painting experiments. After a period of National Service, Blake returned to the Royal College of Art and developed a new, figurative style of painting, rooted in his nostalgia for items from his childhood and for past popular culture. He left RCA with a First Class Diploma and a Leverhulme Research Grant which enabled him to travel to Holland, Spain, Belgium, France and Italy in 1956-57 to study art. One of his tutors at the Royal College of Art was ‘proto-pop artist’ Ruskin Spear. From about 1954 Blake realised that he could paint the subjects he liked such as wrestlers, strippers and popular icons from music and film. Aware of the works by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg he drew his own inspiration from popular and commercial culture. Blake worked in all forms of media producing collage, sculpture, engraving and printmaking. He also created commercial art in the form of graphics and album covers; his most famous being The Beatles’, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which he co-created with Jann Haworth.