Derek Boshier: Rethink / Re-entry

Paul Gorman

Hardcover | 24.13 x 3.05 x 29.46 cm | 288 pp

Thames & Hudson | 2015 | 9780500093887

Taking as his subject icons of consumerism and American popular culture, Derek Boshier (1937-2024) made his name in the 1960s as one of the key proponents of British Pop Art, along with contemporaries David Hockney, Peter Blake and Pauline Boty. Since then, his output became exceptionally diverse, including collage, book design, set design and illustration, as well as photography, film and sculpture.

Rethink/Re-entry traces Boshier's formidable career. Beginning with his rise to prominence in the early 1960s, it then follows his abandonment of painting in the 1970s and his experimentation with new modes of expression, such as collage and illustration, as exemplified by his iconic sleeve design for David Bowie's album Lodger and his drawings for CLASH 2nd Songbook. Also in this decade he formed the Artists’ Union with Bridget Riley and Robin Klassnik and produced politically inspired banner, poster and flyer designs, as well as curating public events such as the Smith/Novak Event.

The chapters on the 1980s detail Boshier’s return to painting. This move coincided with his departure to Texas to teach, where he adopted the iconic figure of the Texan cowboy as the subject for his 'Cowboy' series as well as producing a prolific number of landscape paintings. The 1990s saw him relocate to Los Angeles, where he encountered a culture and iconography that provided rich source material for his later works.