Accession Code: wu0012 Title: The Tuareg Date completed: 1972 Medium: Prints Material: Screenprint Height (mm): 460 Width (mm): 300 Depth (mm): n/a Inscription: Signed and dated Location Name: Medical Teaching Centre Location Description: Corridor Location Floor: 0

© Peter Blake. All rights reserved, DACS 2021

Blake was a student at the Royal College of Art in the mid-1950s and has been described as the Father of Pop Art. However, aspects of his work look back to popular culture of the 1930s and 40s as well as contemporary popular culture.

The Tuareg is one of a series of five silkscreen prints representing imaginary national types of wrestlers. These include The Tuareg, Red Power, Pretty Boy Michael Angelo, Ebony Tarzan and Penny Black. Originally produced as a watercolour, The Tuareg was made into a silkscreen print and published by Waddington Galleries in 1972. In an interview, Blake said: 'I have gone to the wrestling since I was about sixteen, so the wrestling pictures come from a knowledge of wrestling and from being a wrestling fan. Sometimes I paint real wrestlers and sometimes they are completely invented. When they are invented I sometimes use photographs to make up the person I am inventing'.