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With a keen and eclectic eye for art, Sir Peter Blake has voiced his appreciation of the rise in standards of graffiti in W4.

In a recent interview published in The Independent, Sir Peter Blake spoke about how he’ll “come home on the bus and I'll see a kid has come along and tagged every bit of white paint and I think that's really stupid,"

"But when it's good I very much approve of it. It's nice where we live in Chiswick because it looks down on to a passageway and for years it was a dump and the council have at least cleared it up. And then kids tagged it, though recently we've had kids coming in with stencils.

"There's one of Stalin. We look down at some art now that is very nice."

Even though he announced his retirement more than a decade ago, the 75 year old initiator of pop art continues to be as creative as ever with three current shows and an exhibition and t-shirt business in the pipeline.

And despite the fact that, according to the article’s author, Blake resides in an area full of “well-heeled mums pushing their babies in three-wheeler buggies” he manages to keep the rock and roll alive with an album cover for the recently reformed Blockheads.

June 6, 2008