All shook up
This self-portrait by the then 29-year-old Blake became an instant pop art classic. Having clinched the 1961 junior John Moores painting prize, it was featured in the Sunday Times’ first colour supplement and in Ken Russell’s documentary Pop Goes the Easel.
A mess of blues
It’s an ironic riff on Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy, its blue silk outfit replaced by denim, a fabric rich in social history. Blake’s 501s were a coveted rarity at the time, though Elvis (as depicted on the magazine Blake carries) had by then abandoned workwear in favour of tasselled satin.
Stuck on you
The titular badges are not limited to sew-on patches celebrating American culture. Everything here is a prop recalling the symbolic attributes of portraiture. But, as stand-ins for identity, it’s all as paper thin as the magazine he’s holding.
Only the lonely
Balding and sad-eyed, Blake seems prematurely aged. His suburban plot is both a far cry from the great plains of the American dream and Gainsborough’s 18th-century landscapes. In fact, the other art-historical shadow here is Watteau’s superlatively lonely clown, Pierrot.
