Children Reading Comics

The Carlisle Museum and Art Gallery, Washington, the USA.

Wood, oil.

Since student days, Peter Blake has been interested in the theme of childhood and often painted children. One of his early works, “Children Reading Comics”, was based on a child’s photo of the artist, in which the author himself, as a teenager, reads the popular Eagle magazine with his sister Shirley. Since the artist was several years older, he got black and white pages, and his sister got bright and colour pictures. Judging by the expression on the boy’s face, he doesn’t like this fact at all. Like many works of Peter Blake of the 1950s, this one was made on panels of old wood, which gives it a special flavor and charm.