PETER BLAKE, Watercolours and Drawings, Waddington Galleries, 1972

An exhibition catalogue published by Waddington Galleries, London, for Peter Blake's solo show of watercolours and drawings, 5–23 December 1972. Ten pages, staple-bound, with a colour reproduction on the cover: a profile portrait of a figure draped in cloth, painted with the precise, specimen-like attention Blake applied to the subjects he collected and documented — labelled at the foot of the image THE TUAREG, signed and dated 1972.

Inside, the register changes. A girl stands barefoot in a kimono, arms folded — Liberty Blake, his daughter with the artist Jann Haworth, painted with the same exacting patience as the cover. A second spread shows For Jann on Mother's Day, a watercolour of a jug of flowers, soft and pastel-toned. The object was produced five years after Sgt. Pepper, during Blake's early years in the village of Wellow, near Bath, three years before the formation of the Brotherhood of Ruralists. Pop, family, theatricality and domesticity are simply placed beside one another, unresolved, with no name yet for where he was going.

Blake's position within Waddington is printed plainly on a back interior sheet: the gallery roster runs alphabetically — Annesley, Avery, Blake — ahead of Calder, Dubuffet, Klee, Matisse, Moore and Picasso. Liberty Blake in a Kimono subsequently appeared in the 1983 Tate retrospective and at Tate Liverpool in 2007; For Jann on Mother's Day also entered Blake's major retrospective history. The catalogue survives as an early printed record of works that would later become part of the institutional account of his career.

Peter Blake, Watercolours and Drawings, Waddington Galleries, London, 5–23 December 1972. 15 × 21 cm, 10 pages, staple-bound softcover with colour reproductions. Printed by Graphis Press Ltd. No designer credited.

Condition: Good. Light age toning and handling wear to wrappers, minor surface marking and edge wear; staples and fold showing expected signs of age. Internally clean and complete.