Peter Phillips, pioneer of British Pop art, dies at 85

Peter Phillips, a founding figure of British Pop art, has died. He trained at the Royal College of Art alongside David Hockney, Allen Jones, and R.B. Kitaj, and his layered, collage-like paintings incorporated motifs from mass entertainment and consumer culture. His 1961 work 'For Men Only Starring MM and BB' features Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, and pin-up models alongside abstract symbols. In 1963, he exhibited at the Paris Biennale, and in 1964 his work was included in 'Nieuwe Realisten' at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, a landmark show that traveled to Vienna and Berlin. That year, he moved to New York on a fellowship, showing with Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and James Rosenquist. Later solo exhibitions included a 1976 show at Waddington Galleries, London, and a traveling retrospective starting at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool in 1983, which toured to the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Fruitmarket, Edinburgh; Southampton Art Gallery; and Barbican Art Gallery, London. In the 1990s, his work incorporated Neo-expressionist elements, featuring machine parts in abstract compositions. In 2002, the Galleria Civica di Modena hosted a show, and his painting 'War/Game' (1961) was used as the cover art for The Strokes' album 'Room on Fire'.