Helena Seget

A rat's tail
Tony Blair's housemate, Archangel Gabriel

Tony Blair - Artist Rat

Biography.
Tony was a rat - and an artist. From a young age he made re-creations from reclaimed paper and, as his work developed, from foliage, fabric and electrical cables. Blair began to work in clay in June 2007, making impressions and sculpting.
He went on to collaborate with housemates, Gordon Brown and ‘Shy Boy’ Archangel Gabriel, to produce a series of avocado sculptures before branching out into culinary expressions, in the form of uniquely repackaged spaghetti and noodles. He died in 2008.

Before he died Tony was contributing to a blog. See: The Artist-Rat Blog

The name Tony Blair is nothing to do with the former prime minister. The name was chosen by strange happen-chance.

Choose from Tony's menu-categories (on the left of this page) to view images of his work.

PRESS REPORTS

Tony Blair Artist-Rat and his work were featured on the UK's Channel 4 News in early 2008. You can now view a video of the show on the CNN Video website.

Tony was also featured in 'Animal Crackers' on Discovery UK's Animal Planet channel, 7th & 8th August 2008 - find out more on the Animal Planet website.

You can also see Tony in action on Youtube.

Tony's work was featured in newspapers across the world. These are just a few of his clippings...

'Rat's Creative Side Revealed on Art Website'. See: 'Clawed Monet'.

And his death was reported in the Metro Newspaper. See: Rat Blair is dead.

ACADEMIC RESEARCH

Tony has also been referenced in an academic book!
The Anthropology Professor at The University of Illinois, Jane C. Desmond, wrote about Tony’s work in her latest book ‘Displaying Death and Animating Life: Human-Animal Relations in Art, Science & Everyday Life'. Professor Desmond is an authority on the tricky question of whether animals can make art.
Click here to see the account about Tony in the book.