'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.