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Sir Peter Thomas Blake is an English artist often called the Godfather of British Pop Art, best known for his limited edition prints and the design of the sleeve for the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Born in Dartford, Kent, Peter studied at Gravesend School of Art before being accepted into the prestigious Royal Academy of Art in London. He graduated in 1956, having completed his National Service, and went travelling around the world, drawing inspiration as he roamed. Sir Peter's fondness for popular culture can be clearly seen in much of his eclectic collages and silk screen prints with images of Marilyn Monroe mixing with Mona Lisa.

Since his emergence in the early 60s as a key member of the burgeoning Pop Art movement, Peter Blake has been one of the best-known British artists of his generation. His 1961 Self-portrait With Badges, where he stands in his denim jeans and jacket, wearing Converse trainers and holding an Elvis album, is one of the iconic images of the time, but Blake's reputation from the outset, reflecting his broad art education, was based on working across media. He has produced collage, sculpture, engraving and printmaking, as well as commercial art in the form of graphics and, notably, album covers.

Blake is never particularly critical of the cultural iconography he plays with, just amused. Perhaps his best known work is the album cover for the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This strange, colourful huddle of people exemplifies Blake's style: among Beatles dressed in (psychedelic) uniform are Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, and a child wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt. Of all the various forms of Pop art, Blake's is the most affirmative, his humour the most sincere.

Peter Blake creates collages that are undoubtedly odd but never jarring or disruptive. His taste for cut-and-paste techniques does not, like most dada art, culminate in black humour; Blake is nothing if not light. He opposes nothing and negates nothing but instead basks in the icons of popular culture. His prints indulge the utmost veneration for Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, the Beatles, and Elvis. If Warhol's aim was to render culturally salient images meaningless, Blake puts his heroes on a pedestal, paying homage to them with neither irony nor ambiguity.

Peter Blake’s newest work is an exclusive portfolio of signed limited edition prints for In the Long Run. As part of a collaboration between Opus Art and Bupa Great North Run Culture, Peter Blake is producing a portfolio of 10 limited edition prints which will celebrate 30 years of the Great North Run as well as showcasing the international pedigree of the run and the heritage of running. There will be editions of the prints for sale exclusively through Opus Art.

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