- Derek Boshier
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Derek Boshier (b. Portsmouth, 1937) is a British pop artist works in various media including painting, drawing, collage, photography, film and sculpture.
Boshier attended the Royal College of Art, London, along with David Hockney, Allen Jones and Peter Phillips, graduating in 1959. The boredom of the previous few years of National Service in the RAF 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.
He appeared with Peter Blake, Pauline Boty and Peter Phillips in Pop goes the easel, a film by Ken Russell for the BBC's Monitor series in 1962. Boshier later played the role of John Everett Millais in Russell's 1967 TV film Dante's Inferno; 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 he exhibited large shaped canvases with vibrant areas of evenly applied colour. In subsequent years he has used metal, coloured plastics, even light, the materials of the commercial sign maker, to create three-dimensional objects. Also he has experimented both with books and film.
Currently he is living in the United States. 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 Angele's School of Arts where he teaches drawing.
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