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Remembering Peter Phillips: A Pioneer of British Pop Art (1939-2025)
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Phillips in his studio in front of Star Card Table (Cyan) (1974). Photograph courtesy the Phillips family.
Artists Rights Society is deeply saddened by the passing of Peter Phillips, one of the founding figures of British Pop Art and a visionary who brought the boldness of postwar popular culture into the heart of fine art. He died on June 23 at his home on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. He was 86.
Across nearly seven decades, Phillips transformed the visual language of everyday life – cars, advertisements, movie icons – into vibrant, multilayered compositions that redefined the relationship between fine art and mass culture. His work continues to influence artists today.
Born in Birmingham in 1939, Phillips was shaped by the industrial landscape of his youth. His father, a carpenter, built frames for his early works, and the city’s factories, signage, and chrome surfaces became recurring visual motifs. “I started getting interested in cars because I couldn’t afford one myself,” he once said, a reminder of how necessity often sparked his creativity.
His breakthrough came in 1961 with For Men Only – Starring MM and BB, a striking collage featuring Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, commercial graphics, and abstract symbols.
Peter Phillips, For Men Only – Starring MM and BB (1961) © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London
International attention followed quickly. He appeared in Ken Russell’s Pop Goes the Easel (1962), represented the UK at the 1963 Paris Biennale, and participated in Nieuwe Realisten (1964), a landmark European exhibition that helped define Pop Art for continental audiences.
A Harkness Fellowship brought him to New York in 1964, where he exhibited alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. His 1965 solo exhibition at Kornblee Gallery solidified his reputation in the U.S. and deepened the cross-Atlantic dialogue between British and American Pop Art.
Phillips’s work evolved dramatically over the decades. Early collage-inspired pieces gave way to sleek, abstract compositions like Spectrocoupling (1972), which translated electrical energy into geometric forms. He embraced airbrush and commercial techniques that challenged distinctions between fine art and mass production. Later works such as Glamour Girls (1974) layered popular imagery within increasingly sophisticated structures.
Left to Right: Custom Print I from 11 Pop Artists (1965); Spectrocoupling (1972) © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London
Select-o-Mat Tempest I (1972) © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London
Left to Right: Bird and Machine (1974); Glamour Girls (1974) © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London
One of his most enduring pieces, War/Game (1961) – a taut composition of a hand aiming a gun at a mirror – found renewed relevance when it appeared on the cover of The Strokes’ 2003 album Room on Fire, introducing his work to a new generation.
Phillips’ War/Game serves as the basis for The Strokes’ 2003 Room on Fire album cover (RCA Records)
Phillips’s art spoke to the full spectrum of visual experience, questioning hierarchies between high and low culture with wit, precision, and technical mastery. His bold and provocative body of work continues to resonate and remains as relevant today as it was sixty years ago.
Artists Rights Society has had the privilege of representing his work for many years, and we are honored to continue collaborating with his estate to safeguard and promote his artistic achievements.
Reflecting his lifelong commitment to nurturing creative talent, Phillips’s family is establishing the Peter Phillips Foundation to provide grants and residency opportunities for emerging artists. More information about the Foundation can be found on the artist’s website.
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