About Stan Peskett
Stanley Keith Peskett was born in Epsom, Surrey, England in 1939. His father Stanley Roland Peskett was an exceptionally talented amateur artist and encouraged Stanley Keith to draw and paint at an early age. This enabled him to win a junior art award to study art and design full time at the age of thirteen at Epsom School of Art. He studied drawing painting and ceramics and completed the intermediate course in 1956. In 1958 he was awarded full maintenance grant to study at Guildford College of Art. He spent some of his time out of college playing solo jazz and blues piano in London and Margate Kent entertaining GI's.
In Stan's first term at Guildford College he met Derek Boshier a classmate, Boshier encouraged the artist to try for entry to the Royal College of Art where Boshier himself had been accepted. Peskett was successful in getting a scholarship to the Royal College in 1960 when he graduated from Guildford. Peskett spent the early sixties studying with Boshier, David Hockney and Patrick Caulfied. He graduated with an honors degree from the Royal College of art and was awarded an Abbey Scholarship enabling him to travel to Italy in 1963. An artist in residency/fellowship followed at Bradford College of Art from 1963-64. He also had his first solo show at the local museum/art gallery, Cartwright Hall, in 1964. In the catalogue Bryan Robertson (Whitechapel Gallery London) wrote: "Stanley Peskett is one of the best young painters on the London scene".
Stan's interest in murals and monumental scale art started in 1966, when he exhibited a 40ft canvas at the Royal Institute Gallery in Piccadilly London. This eventually led him in the direction of installation art. From 1967 he painted murals for commercial and residential interiors including an Alice in Wonderland Fantasy for Julie Christie and in 1970, was invited to create a giant installation (total house style) for the original Fiorucci Store in Milan Italy. Lena Wertmuller used it in her 1974 movie "All screwed up". It was later cloned in 1979 by Italian designer Ettore Sotass for Fiorucci's New York Store.
In !974 Peskett set up a loft and workspace with English ex employee William Waldron, in Soho New York, where he continued to create a diverse range of installations and murals that led him to become a player in the New York Art World, being the first person in 1978-79 to promote Jean Michel Basquiat, Lee Quinones, and Ramelzee (see: The Guy) . He was represented by art dealer Guillaume Gallozzi who was exposed to British War Art by Peskett. A two year break from New York to San Francisco 1982-84 enabled the artist to team up with the Rock Band "Tubes" member's Prairie Prince and Mike Cotton, they worked together on sets and promo music videos as well as a satirical "Theoretical Theme Park" entitled Themeworld and exhibited it in San Francisco and New York galleries 1982 -83. Peskett continued to exhibit with Guillaume throughout the eighties until he returned to the UK in 1989. He then worked for eighteen months on New Era's Television news production service a division of BSB, UK's first satellite television production facility based in West London. In 1991 he returned to easel painting and exhibited landscapes. In 1993 Stan painted with ten local schools a mural of William Blake having a Vision of Angels in the Peckham and Dulwich section of southeast London, and instigated more of Public Art projects in the London area, after the success of this.
Peskett had been living in Virginia and California since his return to the US in 1999. He has is also collaborating with Prairie Prince and Michael Cotton and has worked with them on the sets for the Styx and Bette Midler stage tours 2003-4. He is currently mural/easel painting and teaching in San Francisco and Mendocino County, California.
In Stan's first term at Guildford College he met Derek Boshier a classmate, Boshier encouraged the artist to try for entry to the Royal College of Art where Boshier himself had been accepted. Peskett was successful in getting a scholarship to the Royal College in 1960 when he graduated from Guildford. Peskett spent the early sixties studying with Boshier, David Hockney and Patrick Caulfied. He graduated with an honors degree from the Royal College of art and was awarded an Abbey Scholarship enabling him to travel to Italy in 1963. An artist in residency/fellowship followed at Bradford College of Art from 1963-64. He also had his first solo show at the local museum/art gallery, Cartwright Hall, in 1964. In the catalogue Bryan Robertson (Whitechapel Gallery London) wrote: "Stanley Peskett is one of the best young painters on the London scene".
Stan's interest in murals and monumental scale art started in 1966, when he exhibited a 40ft canvas at the Royal Institute Gallery in Piccadilly London. This eventually led him in the direction of installation art. From 1967 he painted murals for commercial and residential interiors including an Alice in Wonderland Fantasy for Julie Christie and in 1970, was invited to create a giant installation (total house style) for the original Fiorucci Store in Milan Italy. Lena Wertmuller used it in her 1974 movie "All screwed up". It was later cloned in 1979 by Italian designer Ettore Sotass for Fiorucci's New York Store.
In !974 Peskett set up a loft and workspace with English ex employee William Waldron, in Soho New York, where he continued to create a diverse range of installations and murals that led him to become a player in the New York Art World, being the first person in 1978-79 to promote Jean Michel Basquiat, Lee Quinones, and Ramelzee (see: The Guy) . He was represented by art dealer Guillaume Gallozzi who was exposed to British War Art by Peskett. A two year break from New York to San Francisco 1982-84 enabled the artist to team up with the Rock Band "Tubes" member's Prairie Prince and Mike Cotton, they worked together on sets and promo music videos as well as a satirical "Theoretical Theme Park" entitled Themeworld and exhibited it in San Francisco and New York galleries 1982 -83. Peskett continued to exhibit with Guillaume throughout the eighties until he returned to the UK in 1989. He then worked for eighteen months on New Era's Television news production service a division of BSB, UK's first satellite television production facility based in West London. In 1991 he returned to easel painting and exhibited landscapes. In 1993 Stan painted with ten local schools a mural of William Blake having a Vision of Angels in the Peckham and Dulwich section of southeast London, and instigated more of Public Art projects in the London area, after the success of this.
Peskett had been living in Virginia and California since his return to the US in 1999. He has is also collaborating with Prairie Prince and Michael Cotton and has worked with them on the sets for the Styx and Bette Midler stage tours 2003-4. He is currently mural/easel painting and teaching in San Francisco and Mendocino County, California.
Having documented almost twenty years of his final time in the US, It was was one of the most inspired periods of his life when on daily basis he captured the many changing moods throughout the seasons mainly with en plein air watercolors as well studio renderings in oils on canvas. all of this was curtailed for medical reasons (colorectal surgery) in July 2018, It was time to return to the UK. and about to become an Octagarian with family in Hererford UK well clear of a frightening US political landscape with Fascism rearing its ugly head yet again. He is back to where he started in 1939 with the London Blitz..
No Blitz where he is now but living in lockdown in an idyllic rural retreat in the West of England (Hereford) Painting again on a daily basis and riffing with his favorite blues style piano. Some of this new output will be available on line in a rich tapestry of inspired Multi Media. S.K.P. 07 31 20