Background
Derek Boshier was born on June 19, 1937, in Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
Guildford art school
Royal College of Art in London
Place Georges-Pompidou, 75004 Paris, France
David Hockney with one of his East Yorkshire canvases at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Photo by Aurélien Meunier.
painter Photographer printmaker sculptor
Derek Boshier was born on June 19, 1937, in Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
Derek Boshier studied art at the art school of Yeovil Somerset in 1953 - 1957, then he continued his studies at the Guildford art school during 1957 - 1959, and ended the training at the Royal College of Art in London in 1959 - 1962.
During his stay at the Royal College of Art in London, Boshier shared his formative period with a group of artists who would form part of the British Pop Art School: David Hockney, Allen Jones, R.B. Kitaj, Peter Phillips, and Patrick Caufield. His first exhibition was held at the RBA galleries in London. In 1962 he was awarded a scholarship by the Commonwealth and moved to India.
Influenced by Indian mythology and symbology, he painted a series of pictures on Symbolist themes which were accidentally destroyed. The following year he was selected as a British representative at the Biennale in Paris, while he began his teaching as a professor at the Central School of art and design in London and the College of Art there. He traveled to the United States of America for the first time in 1964 where he was able to observe the work of the American Pop Art artists and appreciate the differences at the British movement.
Since then, Boshier was selected at the main international exhibitions showing the work of British pop artists in Berlin, Vienna, and the Hague. In 1973 he was appointed Professor at the Royal College of Art in London. For a brief period of time, he settled in Canada in 1975, where he was invited to teach at the University of Victoria in Vancouver Island.
Between 1966 and 1979, Derek Boshier abandoned painting in favor of sculpture and photography. The work of this period kept the topics covered before on the canvas: concern over the political landscape, interest in the phenomenon of the Americanization of European culture and the influence of advertising on society. Technically, Boshier used neon tubes and other materials for the execution of these works. In 1980, coinciding with his appointment as Assistant Professor of painting at the University of Houston, Boshier resumed pictorial practice expressing a keen interest on the harmful effects of human activities on the environment.
Boshier's work feeds the juxtaposition of different elements: boxes of breakfast cereals, stickers, decals, and graphics of all kinds. As the artist says, all the images that he uses in his work relate to the idea of the projection. Recurring themes in his work, sieved by their readings of Marshall McLuhan and Vance Packard, are the influence of the means of social communication and advertising in the society; the process of submission of European cultural values to those proposed by the winning of the Second World War America and the relations of the individual with peers through their political representation.
In 2017 Boshier added to his extensive exhibiting record with a solo exhibition at the Night Gallery (Los Angeles) as well as exhibiting at Tanya Leighton (Berlin), Tom Solomon Gallery (Los Angeles) and a two-person show at Galerie Albert Baronian (Brussels). Alongside his solo shows Boshier has also appeared in several group exhibitions at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Tate Britain and British Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Centre Pompidou.
In recent years Boshier was the recipient of the Honorary Fellowship of the RCA in 2016 as well as the Guggenheim fellowship and NEA award for the arts, he is also an accomplished teacher and lecturer. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
Output
F.E.
Boy
Fooootball
Pataphysics Weekly: From the 'Magazine' series
Flag
Frightened Cowboy
Untitled
Cocaine Cowboy
Untitled
Pepsi High
Untitled (Head top right Toothpaste/Toothbrush/Pyramid) (271 - A G)
The Identi-Kit Man
The Dinner Party
Shy Cowboy
Serpent Stripe
Untitled (5 Pepsi's and Sun 2 Guns)
Viewer
Plan 1
Plan II
unknown title
Naked Cowboy
Derek Boshier has two beautiful daughters, Rosa and Lillian.
