'Babe Rainbow, a fictitious lady wrestler, is the most
recent in a line of wrestlers I have painted', said Peter Blake. 'These include
Irish Lord X, Doktor K Tortur, Kamikaze and Les Orchidées Noires. She is
twenty-three years old and has broken her nose in the ring. She was born in New
Cross, London and wrestles mainly in Europe and the USA as there have only been
a few contests between lady wrestlers in London. She is the daughter of the
notorious Doktor K Tortur.'
Born in Kent, Blake trained at the Royal College of Art. As a
student he became fascinated with magazine covers, fairground art and similar
popular ephemera. He utilised such material in collages and became a leading
figure in British 'Pop' art of the 1960s. Blake's most famous work is the cover
design for the Beatles LP Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. 'Babe
Rainbow' was commissioned in an edition of 1000 by Dodo Designs in 1968.
Unusually for the time it was printed on tin.