Born 1937 in Portsmouth, UK, Derek Boshier was a seminal British artist and was a leading figure of the British Pop scene in the 1960s.
Boshier rose to prominence early in his career. In 1961, while he was still a student at the Royal College of Art in London, the Whitechapel Art Gallery presented the landmark exhibition "Young Contemporaries," featuring his works alongside those of his classmates David Hockney, Allen Jones, R.B. Kitaj, and Peter Phillips.
Just one year later, Boshier was featured along with Peter Blake, Pauline Boty, and Peter Phillips, in Ken Russell’s Pop Goes the Easel — a 1962 BBC documentary about Britain's Pop art movement. Russell differentiated the movement by its unapologetic delight in mass culture, and Boshier, in particular, by the intellectual tenor of his paintings.
Boshier’s work of the period dealt with the space race, pop music, and the Americanization of Britain. Just about every part of British life, the artist observed, from its fashions to its entertainment to its Kellogg’s-based breakfasts, was increasingly shaped by America’s far-reaching advertising and cultural dominance.
In his iconic painting England’s Glory (1961), the artist depicts an American Flag spreading like an oil spill over a matchbox that bears the painting’s eponymous phrase. Elsewhere in the work, Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson’s famous quote from the Battle of Trafalgar, "England expects that every man will do his duty," competes with Kellogg’s Yogi Bear for space, symbolizing the unrelenting ubiquity and spread of American consumerism. To this day, the visual artifacts of mass culture remain potent ingredients in the artist’s work where corporate logos commingle with history, art, and poetry — Joan Miró and William Blake.
Boshier has been both prolific and wide-ranging in his artistic production, working in varied media as painting, drawing, prints, film, sculpture, and installation, among others. The Clash’s 2nd Songbook — as well as David Bowie’s Lodger album cover — exposed mass audiences to his work. His collaboration with Bowie sparked a life-long friendship, many subsequent collaborations, and a handful of Bowie paintings.
In addition to his art practice, Boshier had a long and distinguished record as an educator, teaching at the Central School of Art and Design, London from 1963–1979, the Royal College of Art, London from 1973–1979, the University of Houston from 1980–1992, and the California Institute of Arts in Los Angeles from 1997 to the present.
Boshier was the subject of over 91 solo exhibitions at prestigious venues such as Flowers Gallery (1974 and 1976, London); Texas Gallery (1987, 1989, and 1991, Houston); Galerie du Centre (2003, 2005, 2007, and 2013, Paris); Flowers Gallery (2008, 2012, and 2013, New York); the National Portrait Gallery (2013, London) and Gazelli Art House (2017 and 2019, London). His work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions including "Art and The Sixties" (2004, Tate, London); "Pop Art: UK" (2004, Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy); "British Pop" (2006, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Spain), and others.
Boshier's work features in numerous public collections internationally, including the Tate, London; the British Museum, London; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, Windsor Castle; the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, and others.
Find Derek Boshier art for sale on 1stDibs.
(Biography provided by Alpha 137 Gallery)
$800
Derek Boshier - Culture Carriers Stamp Out Art SCARCE Signed/N British Pop stamp
By Derek Boshier
Located in New York, NY
DEREK BOSHIER "Culture Carriers Stamp Out Art", (Hand Signed), from the Collection of Art Critic Anthony Haden-Guest, 1971 Lithograph mounted on franked envelope of wove paper (Hand ...
Lithograph
$3,000
H 12 in W 12 in
Rare original Keith Haring Vinyl Record Art (Keith Haring Crack Is Wack)
By Keith Haring
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Rare Keith Haring “Life is Fresh! Crack Is Wack!” 1987 sealed/unopened in its original shrink wrapping: A highly sought-after 1980s record album featurin...
Offset, Lithograph
$30,000
H 31.07 in W 31 in
Modern Print /// Roy Lichtenstein Pop Art Abstract Geometric MoMA Gemini G.E.L.
By Roy Lichtenstein
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997) Title: "Modern Print" *Numbered, signed, and dated by Lichtenstein in pencil lower right Year: 1971 Medium: Original Lithograph and Scr...
Lithograph, Screen
Keith Haring: Into 1984/Tony Shafrazi Gallery
By Keith Haring
Located in New York, NY
Color offset lithograph. Signed and dated in felt-tip pen and pink ink, lower right. Published by Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York.
Color, Lithograph, Offset
$175
H 37 in W 27 in
Vintage Frank Stella poster Democratic Convention 1980 colorful Pop political
By Frank Stella
Located in New York, NY
Colorful vintage poster for the 1980 Democratic National Convention, held in Madison Square Garden in New York.Concentric lines of orange and bright green interweave with strokes of pink, yellow, red, turquoise, silver, and gold. Printed with metallic ink that catches light differently from each angle, complementing the poster’s lime green and red text. The top of the poster reads “Let us move forward with a strong and active faith.” It was at this 1980 convention that Jimmy Carter was nominated for reelection. This large poster was printed by Petersburg Press in 1980, and features Frank Stella’s Polar...
Lithograph
$425
H 12.9 in W 12.9 in
Robert Rauschenberg Talking Heads Speaking in Tongues (new/sealed)
By Robert Rauschenberg
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Rare unopened Robert Rauschenberg designed Talking Heads Speaking in Tongues: In 1983, legendary pop artist Robert Rauschenberg designed the album cover for Talking Heads’ acclaimed...
Lithograph, Offset
Suckers State I
By Wayne Thiebaud
Located in New York, NY
A very good impression of this lithograph on Rives BFK. Signed, inscribed "state I" and numbered 111/150 in pencil. Printed and published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, with the blin...
Lithograph
$950
H 38.5 in W 23.5 in
Leo Castelli Gallery (Landscape with Red Sky) Poster /// Roy Lichtenstein Pop
By Roy Lichtenstein
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: (after) Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997) Title: "Leo Castelli Gallery (Landscape with Red Sky)" Year: 1985 Medium: Original Offset-Lithograph, Exhibition Poster on smoo...
Lithograph, Offset
$3,750
H 31 in W 46 in D 2 in
Large Bus by Allen Jones classic British 1960s pop art in bright primary colors
By Allen Jones
Located in New York, NY
This large Allen Jones lithograph is printed exuberantly in primary colors. A swath of bright red brushstrokes represents the side of a bus. In the upper left, small windows reveal the passengers: a woman’s face is cut off above her vampy red lips, and a blue-haired man’s face is hidden. Royal blue fills the upper right corner of the composition, giving the impression of looking up at a passing bus against the cloudless sky. One can imagine Jones was thinking of the iconic red double decker bus the AEC Routemaster, first introduced in London in 1954. In the 1960s buses were a living symbol of familiar and new technology coexisting: as David Bucken put it, “In and around London a midpoint change on a journey might involve alighting from an RT bus, of which production had started just prior to World War II, and getting on one of the sexy new Routemasters.” In the artist’s words: “The whole problem as a figurative artist was that it was going against the main march of modernism, which was towards abstraction. But here was a way of making the subject you were painting the same as the object you were painting on. By making the canvas a rhomboid, and putting little wheels on it, you have a schematic version of a vehicle, in this case a London bus.” Jones plays with the space between abstraction and figuration: windowed passengers, elaborated with just a few lines and placed adjacent to a weighty red ground of brushstrokes, easily convey the form of a bus, yet the print also conveys Jones’ visceral, painterly delight in color play. Four color lithograph on wove paper Paper 28.5 x 42.5 / 72.4 X 108 cm Wood frame 31 x 46 x 2 in. / 78.75 x 117 x 5 cm with 1 in. moulding Signed by the artist lower right in pencil, labeled Trial Proof lower left in pencil. Edition 20. Printed at Tamarind Los Angeles with Clifford Smith...
Lithograph
Keith Haring Paris 1987 (Keith Haring Pompidou)
By Keith Haring
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Keith Haring Paris, 1987: Well-suited for framing, this vibrant oversized illustrated bag was designed by Keith Haring during his lifetime for the P...
Plastic, Offset, Lithograph
Spirals and Forms
By Alexander Calder
Located in New York, NY
Signed and numbered in pencil Color lithograph on wove paper Condition: In Excellent condition
Lithograph
As I Opened Fire Poster, Triptych
By (after) Roy Lichtenstein
Located in New York, NY
Set of 3 color offset lithographs. The last panel is signed in pencil. Printed by Drukkerij Luii & Co., Amsterdam. Published by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. This is a reproductio...
Color, Lithograph, Offset
$3,750
H 21.75 in W 29.5 in
Tumbleweed, James Rosenquist neon blue barbed wire sculptural lithograph drawing
By James Rosenquist
Located in New York, NY
This print depicts the tangle of barbed wire encircling curling and twisting neon, with lengths of wood at the center. The dark paper sets off the electric blue, and captures the ori...
Lithograph