Sir Peter Blake

Marshall to share wisdom

Nelson City Council chief executive Keith Marshall has been selected to address the Sir Peter Blake Leadership Forum in Auckland next month.

He will join several other speakers including New Zealand Cricket chief executive Justin Vaughan, Westpac retail banking head Gai McGrath and Olympian Beatrice Faumuina in talking to about 400 people at Auckland University on July 6.

Sir Peter Blake Trust chief executive Shelley Campbell said the forum was the flagship event in Leadership Week and offered aspiring leaders the chance to hear some fresh opinions and insights on developing effective, action-based leadership from business and community leaders.

She approached Mr Marshall after learning of his "amazing" results in lifting team performance at the council.

Mr Marshall said he felt honoured to have been asked to speak. "I believe it is a reflection on the work that the entire staff of Nelson City Council has done over the last two years to improve how we work together as a team to better serve our customers, the people of Nelson."

Mayor Aldo Miccio said the whole council organisation had benefited from Mr Marshall's innovative and dedicated approach to good leadership.

"It is great that others will get the opportunity to get a taste of his drive and enthusiasm and learn from his wealth of experience."

Keith Marshall's first 2 1/2 years at the Nelson City Council are examined in today's Weekend section on p13.

Interview with Sir Peter Blake

Despite his success, this iconic artist, who will forever be linked with Fab Four mythology, and who’s turning 80 next year, remains a modest, down to earth man who’s never forgotten his humble origins, which saw him begin his artistic career by accident. Towards the end of World War Two, at the age of 14, he was asked at a technical school interview if he’d be interested to “pop round the corner” to take the entrance drawing examination at the Royal College of Art. Blake agreed to it, and the rest is pop history. “The opportunity was presented to me in a very unexpected way,” he tells Time Out over the phone from his London studio. “I probably would’ve got into the trade field like my electrician father had they not asked me to try out for art school. It was complete chance. I was certainly no child prodigy.”

Blake is famous for his renditions of pin-up girls, wrestlers and cultural pop icons. He attributes his social class as being a large factor in his choices of subject matter, saying: “I used to go watch wrestling matches with my mother as a child. It’s just part of being working class really.” Indeed, much of Blake’s artworks reflect an almost autobiographical theme, especially those of his earliest collections. The artist’s early paintings as a teenager were of young school boys in uniform and badges, which are symbolic of his earlier childhood. And although admitting to never having set foot in a strip club as a boy, the artist attributes his early exposure to abundant pinups girl images as the reason behind his principal theme.

When asked if he thinks the pastiche commonly seen in pop art has become tired in this age, seeing how everything is stitched together for quick and mass consumption nowadays, Blake speaks frankly of his belief that the movement itself should’ve stopped at its peak of popularity, in the 1960s. “Many American pop artists couldn’t move away from it. That was their ring and they were making a lot of money from it.” The artist recalls how Roy Lichtenstein, who originally started off as an abstract expressionist, didn’t particularly enjoy comics. In fact, he painted his first rendition of the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor Man as a gift for his young son; when a buyer saw Lichtenstein’s painting, it was sold right away and Lichtenstein was requested to paint more. “So in a way, most of the American pop artists were stuck with their subject matter,” says Blake.

Sir Peter Blake, An Amazing Life

Sir Peter Blake, an amazing life : the authorised biography

Sir Peter Blake, Sailor Extraordinaire

The Last Great Adventure of Sir Peter Blake, With Seamaster and Blakexpeditions from Antarctica to the Amazon : Sir Peter Blake's Logbooks

The Last Great Adventure of Sir Peter Blake, Sir Peter Blake's Logbooks