Audio Guide Transcript Chris Stephens of Tate Britain, co-curator of 'This Was Tomorrow':
"Peter Blake's Self-Portrait with Badges is almost a Manifesto painting for what he saw himself standing for.
It's a pastiche in a way of Gainsborough's famous blue boy, but he's replaced the blue suit from the Gainsborough with his own denim
jacket and jeans, which at the time were clear indicators of a youthful, working-class American culture, which he's reinforced with
his Converse baseball boots and the Elvis magazine that he's holding.
Blake was fascinated with the phenomenon of fandom, the fanatical following that people like Elvis and later the Beatles got, particularly
amongst teenagers.
And he explores this in a way through the array of badges on his jacket, and the badges are a crucial part of the culture of the late 50s
and 60s, the way people used them to indicate the kinds of things they were interested in and the people they associated themselves with.
And there's this phenomenon in the 60s of people defining themselves through their heroes.
It's echoed in all sorts of forms - there's a poem by Adrian Henri who was one of the Liverpool Beat poets who came out of Merseyside
at the same time as the Beatles, who wrote a poem called 'Me', which is just a list of names ranging from Mahler to Paul McCartney to
Che Guevara, and it adds up to his picture of himself through his heroes, and that's what Blake is doing here.
And it's what's interesting about Blake in particular, it's that he didn't just celebrate the new popular culture that was coming from
America that was seen as very glamorous and luxurious, but he also loved traditional old-fashioned British culture - fairgrounds,
children's toys. I think here one of the badges is of the Union Jack and I think that's a way that he reminds you that he's not just,
purely a fan of America but also just loves every aspect of everyday life.
Audio guide commentary
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