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Peter Phillips

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Peter Phillips

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Peter Phillips (born May 21, 1939) is an English artist who is one of the pioneers of the Pop Art movement. His work ranges from oils on canvas to multi-media compositions and collages to sculptures and architecture.

As one of the originators of Pop Art, Peter got his start at the Royal College of Art with his fellow students David Hockney, Allen Jones, R.B. Kitaj and others of the British Pop Art Movement. When he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship he moved to New York, where he exhibited his work alongside his American counterparts Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist. Phillips later returned to Europe, where he now resides and continues to paint and exhibit.
Phillips was born in 1939 at Birmingham, England. From 1953 to 1955 he studied at Moseley Road Secondary School of Art, Birmingham, from 1955 to 1959 at the Birmingham School of Art. In 1959 he visited Paris and started to exhibit at the RBA Galleries, London.
Between 1959 and 1962, Phillips studied at the Royal College of Art. There he saw reproductions of work by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. He was particularly aligned to American culture and reflected its commercial iconography and aggressive advertising style in his dynamic montage paintings.

From 1962 to 1963 he taught at the Coventry College of Art and the Birmingham College of Art. In 1963 he was represented at the Paris Biennale, and in 1964 his work was included in the Pop Art exhibition shown at the Hague, Vienna and Berlin. In 1964, Phillips was awarded the Harkness Fellowship, which brought him to New York. From 1964 until 1966, he lived in New York and travelled throughout the United States with his close friend, Allen Jones. In 1965 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Kornblee Gallery, New York. One year later, Phillips returned to Europe, and from 1968 to 1969, he was guest teacher at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg.
In 1970, Peter Phillips married Claude Marion Xylander, they made frequent trips throughout Africa, the Far East, and the United States. Throughout the decade of the seventies, and together] the Phillips' resided in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1972, Phillips had a retrospective at the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, and in 1976 at the Tate Gallery, London. In 1977 he had a retrospective in Milan.
In 1981, Phillips' travels brought him to Australia. In 1982-83 he had a retrospective exhibition, which was shown at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; Southampton Art Gallery and the Barbican Art Gallery, London. In 1986, Peter and Claude moved from Zurich to Mallorca, Spain. Throughout the eighties, Phillips work was exhibited at a variety of galleries around Spain, including Barlecona, Valencia, Madrid, and Mallorca.
The decade of the nineties brought Phillips' work to Canada and the United States, for exhibitions in cities including Montreal, Boston, Houston, and New York. He was a featured artist at the Fundacio Miro and Casal Solleric in Mallorca in 1996. In 1998, he was exhibited in London at the "Freedom of Choices" exhibition. At the same time, Phillips continued to build and expand his property in Mallorca according to his own design, which has been featured in numerous architecture, gardening, and home magazines.
Phillips was shown during a retrospective in 2002 at the Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy.

In 2003, Claude-Marion Phillips died on January 30th of Cancer. Shortly thereafter, in 2004, Phillips staged an exhibition dedicated to his wife, Claude, at Whitford Fine Art (London). Also, he was featured at the "Pop Art UK" group exhibition at Galleriea Civica di Modena, Italy.

While making frequent trips to the United States and Central America, and wintering in Austria, 2005 brought "Metamorphosis" exhibition at Goulanderis Foundation (Andros, Greece) and the "British Pop" group exhibition at the Museo de Bellas Artes (Bilbao, Spain).

Phillips currently resides in Europe, whiere he continues to paint and exhibit. He also travels frequently to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sydney.