Daily Artwork — “The First Real Target?, Peter Blake, 1961”

Use the images posted in this feature for writing prompts, warm-up activities, drawing templates or as part of an artwork critique.

The foundations of Pop Art in America were laid during the 1950s by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Like Blake, both these artists incorporated images taken from popular culture into a fine art context, and Blake has acknowledged their example. This work refers to Johns’s work in particular. Whereas Johns had taken a familiar object – a target – and executed this motif on the canvas in a painterly style, Blake took this further by using a real archery target purchased from a sports shop. The work of art is consequently less like a painting and is even closer to the real world. Blake thus questions: is this ‘the first real target’? [MUSEUM CARD]

1961 — The First Real Target?.  Enamel on canvas and paper on board.  Pop Art style. Peter Blake (1932-).  Tate Modern, London, UK.

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