Making a trio with 'The Animals’ Fancy Dress Ball' and 'New
Year’s Eve Parade', Peter Blake completes his imagined narrative of Marcel
Duchamp visiting The Tower Ballroom, Blackpool while on a tour of England. Each
edition is made using a combination of silkscreen and lithography; the first
time Blake has combined these two mediums.

In the early 2000s Blake made a series of paintings under
the title 'Marcel Duchamp's World Tour'. These large works centred on the
idea of Marcel Duchamp finding himself in unexpected situations: playing chess
with Tracey Emin, or on a tour bus with the Spice Girls. The Tower Ballroom
prints are an extension of this playful concept; a further incident on
Duchamps’s tour of the world. Blake includes the figure of Duchamp in each
piece, it is for the viewer to seek him out. The three works imagine three
different and fantastical events that Duchamp attends during his stay in Blackpool.
On this occasion Duchamp is an honoured guest at a reunion of DC Thomson
characters,

"I saw Beano and Dandy as a child in the 1940s and the
characters stayed in my memory, especially Lord Snooty and the gang. I thought
it would be nice for Marcel Duchamp to meet the animals and all my chums from
DC Thomson." - Sir Peter Blake

Blake's homage to Duchamp is not surprising; he paved the
way for many modern and contemporary art movements including pop art,
installation art and conceptual art, as well as influencing many of the YBAs
(Hirst, Emin, Quinn, Turk - all of whom are friends of Blake). Duchamp's
mission statement that anything an artist did could be art, has certainly been
central to Blake's work and his philosophy of fine art.

The Blackpool Tower Ballroom is an iconic choice for an
artist who has always been fascinated by popular leisure activities. He
populates the ballroom with a magic crowd of much-loved characters including
Dennis and Gnasher, Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger, Desperate Dan, Lord Snooty,
the Bash Street Kids and many more.