Museum for Myself

Peter Blake started amassing his collection of objects at the age of 14, just after he had started at Gravesend Art School in Kent and discovered a junk shop behind the train station. On his very first visit he bought a papier-mâché tray, a set of Shakespeare’s writings and small Army & Navy needle packet depicting the ship The Queen Mary. You can in fact see this last item on the bottom row of Museum for Myself, just above the title.

Blake has been using small-scale ‘museum’ formats over many years. For example, he has assembled a series called Museum of Black and White, containing only objects in these colours. Museum for Myself was made in 1982 and is part of a wider series of collages made from pop ephemera, discarded artworks, signed photographs, sweet wrapper foil, doorknobs and just about anything else you can think of. This museum brings together a collection of items from Blake’s interests and obsessions. Comedian Max Miller appears in a signed photograph right in the middle of Museum for Myself along with the signature of Marcel Duchamp, photographs of the Beatles and 490 miniature shells in a labelled glass bottle.

Museum for Myself Peter BlakeMixed media, 1982115.3 x 86cmcourtesy of the artist

A Museum for Myself

Peter Blake

1. Photograph of Brigitte Bardot

2. Swimming, Montague A. Holbein.

A paragraph from the first chapter

of the book is reproduced below:

“If it were generally known that

swimming is highly beneficial to the

nervous system, and repairs the vital

functions when a person is falling into

a decline, it is safe to say that many

of those thus afflicted would at once

determine to learn and practice it. We

are lamentably behind the Continental

nations in recognising that every boy and

girl at an early age should be compelled

to learn. I do not mean to say that Britons

are not fond of the water – the reverse is

in fact the case. A visit to any watering

place in the summer season will soon

convince anyone that the people of this

kingdom delight in taking a ‘dip’ wherever

possible. But what I must lament is the

deplorable number of people who are

content to paddle in the shallows – afraid

to go a foot out of their depth. For one

bather who can swim you will find thirty

who cannot.”

3. Army & Navy needle packet depicting

The Queen Mary

4. Mounted card reproduction of Marcel

Duchamp’s painted ‘demisphere’. Signed

“for Peter Blake. Marcel Duchamp”

5. Promotional photographic strip of

musicians, from left to right: Elvis

Presley, Jim Dale, Frankie Vaughan,

Terry Dene, Lonnie London, Michael

Holliday, Tommy Steele, Pat Boone,

Tommy Steele

6. Max Miller on stage, signed photograph

7. Windsor Castle emblematic material

patch. Marked ‘Room 540’

8. Advertisement. Text reads:

“Au royaume de Flore.

S’ouvrant d’amour Sauterelle

Pleure, au son de sa Chantelle

et voudrait à la noble rose

ouvrir son coeur mais elle n’ose

Oh majeste que n’es – tu mienne!

Pense la pauvre musicienne

Veritable extrait de viande Liebig”

9. Glass Jar. Labelled ‘490 Shells’

10. Tin plate depicting Dopey

11. The Sunderland Empire programme.

Monday 3 August, 1908

12. Flower illustration marked “Rosa camina.

Common Dog Rose”

13. Shirley Temple in cut out car featuring

the face of Shirley Temple

14. Metal paint can with wall hanging.

Marked “BLOCKHEAD”

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Selected items from Museum for Myself