Derek Boshier

Derek Boshier (born 1937, in Portsmouth) is an English pop artist works in various media including painting, drawing, collage, photography, film and sculpture.

Early life

Derek Boshier attended the Royal College of Art in London, alongside David Hockney, Allen Jones and Peter Phillips, graduating in 1962. The boredom of the previous few years of National Service in the [Royal Engineers] had been alleviated by reading the works of Marshall McLuhan. During his college years, his work was didactic, commenting on the space race, the all-powerful multinationals and the increasing Americanisation of English culture. After graduating, he spent a year travelling in India on an Indian government scholarship.

Career

He appeared with Peter Blake, Pauline Boty and Peter Phillips in Pop Goes the Easel (1962), a film by Ken Russell for the BBC's Monitor series. Boshier later played the role of John Everett Millais in Russell's television film Dante's Inferno (1967); his girlfriend Gala Mitchell played Jane Morris.

Never one to allow his message to be governed by any particular medium, at the 1964 The New Generation show at the Whitechapel Gallery he exhibited large shaped canvases with vibrant areas of evenly applied colour.

After 1966 he has used metal, coloured plastics, even neon light, the materials of the commercial sign maker, to create three-dimensional objects. Also he has experimented both with books and film.

During the early 1970s Boshier taught at Central School of Art and Design where one of his pupils was John Mellor (later known as Joe Strummer of The Clash). This led to Boshier designing The Clash's second song book. Boshier also worked on designs for David Bowie.

Boshier now lives in Los Angeles, USA. Social commentary has once more become a major element of his work tackling head on subjects that have strong political overtones such as gun control, police brutality and once again, the multinationals - this time on home turf.

He is a visiting lecturer at University of California Los Angeles School of Arts where he teaches drawing.

• Tate Gallery - his 1962 painting The Identi-Kit Man was purchased in 1971.

• "Derek Boshier - The Identi-Kit Man - 1962". Tate.org.uk. Retrieved 1 August 2014.