Pop Art is still alive and well.  Brigit Riley created her famous painting ‘Pause’ on show in the current exhibition at the Gazelli Art House in 1964. Now in her late 80′s, she has just completed her staircase mural ‘Messengers’ at the National Gallery in London.  Brian Clarke produced his ‘Three Hand Grenades’ in 1969; he completed his ‘Early Morning Thief’ last year in 2018.

These three works (obviously excluding Messengers), with work by other artists that cover the span of 50 years of Pop Art, are included in Gazelli Art House’s exhibition ‘Robert Fraser’s Groovy Arts Club Band’ celebrating the late Robert Fraser, with curators Mila Askarova and David G A Stephenson bringing together work by 13 artists who Fraser promoted in the art world, as if Fraser was still alive and had himself arranged the exhibition, set in the heart of fashionable Mayfair overlooking Dover Street.   Work is therefore included up to the present time, although Fraser himself died in 1986, along with a double-vinyl album in collaboration with the Arts Club containing 14 tracks in tribute to Fraser whose nickname was Groovy Bob, in recognition of his larger-than-life lifestyle at the heart of the ‘Swinging Sixties’, bridging across all the arts and perhaps best known for commissioning the famous album cover for the Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band from Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, both of whom are quite rightly represented in the exhibition, along with Keith Haring, Richard Hamilton, Brian Clarke, Colin Self, Ed Ruscha and Derek Boschier.

What a vibrant time that was, with new directions in art and music which have lasted the test of time.  Is there anything equivalent today that bridges across the different visual, written and musical fields?