Self-portrait with badges

Tate Gallery, London, the UK.

Canvas, oil.

Here, the artist depicted himself standing in the garden at full height, in jeans clothes and with a lot of badges on his jacket. The work contains several details indicating Peter Blake’s fascination with American culture. First of all, fashionable American denim clothes, badges and basketball shoes, as well as a magazine with the inscription “Elvis Presley”, which at that time became known to the British reader. It is not by chance that some researchers draw parallels between this picture and Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait of The Blue Boy, although the author himself never confirmed this connection.