4
1960–1980
Redirection and Change
Cuba’s proximity to the United States has forever defined relations between the two countries. Twentieth-century Cuba longed for independence and self-sufficiency. At the same time, the USA had long-term commercial interests and land-ownership in Cuba and a tendency to intervene in Cuban internal affairs. Then in 1959, anti-imperialist Fidel Castro and his guerrilla army overthrew the existing Cuban president, Fulgencio Batista. Castro became prime minister, began social reforms, and nationalized (took over) US businesses. Matters escalated. The USA cut off diplomatic relations and imposed a trade embargo on Cuba. Castro declared Cuba a Communist state and looked to the USSR as an ally. Feeling threatened by the USA, in 1962 Castro agreed to allow the USSR to base nuclear missiles on the island. This resulted in ‘the Cuban Missile Crisis’: the two Cold War superpowers were headed for nuclear war, but backed away just in time. But from then on, the USA found its close island-neighbour an irritation and kept up its embargo, and Cuba viewed the USA as an imperialist threat to itself, as well as globally.1
Cuba celebrated its independence, and declared solidarity with other countries struggling for independence, through the publishing and distribution of large numbers of beautiful, artistic posters (as well as, at times, supplying weaponry or military support). Those posters were, and still are, models of simplicity and directness in their use of composition, colour and symbolism. They have influenced generations of artists, globally, ever since.2
In the USA, the mid-1960s brought revolution in many different forms. Young people rebelled against the ‘Eisenhower generation’ and its values. They ‘dropped out’, expressing themselves through new cultural codes of dress (long hair, t-shirts, jeans), as well as music, sex and drugs. San Francisco became the undeclared epicentre of hippie culture, espousing ‘peace and love’, but hippiedom quickly spread across the country and beyond. Popular art exploded in many exciting forms. Psychedelic posters were heavily associated with music and bands, and characterized by complex visual patterns, bright or lurid/acidic colours and barely readable lettering, all reminiscent of a drug-induced state. The underground press (magazines or newspapers) reflected this hallucinatory art, as well as railing against ‘the establishment’, debating politics, reporting news or exchanging ideas.3
Arguably the best-loved graphics of that time were underground comics: rude, crude, over-sexed, offensive and often hilarious. Some of the best-known artists associated with underground posters, press and/or comics included Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin and Robert Crumb. The underground press, its ideas and its art, crossed the ocean to Europe, spread by travellers or simply carried in suitcases, and soon achieved an international reach.4
In Britain, the early 1960s saw a new generation rebelling against the old social order with sniggering satire, giving rise to the satire boom. It started with the theatre performance of a subversive review called ‘Beyond the Fringe’, which mocked the government, class system, academics, politicians, royalty, religion… and Britain’s loss of international status. A vital part of this scenario was the satirical magazine Private Eye, founded in 1961, which mocked everyone and everything. It is especially known for its notorious front-covers, and still runs to this day. Britain also produced its own underground press, publishing magazines such as Oz, Ink and IT (International Times), which reported news and protests from the USA as well as concentrating on issues closer to home.5
Poster against the US invasion of Cambodia 1970
Silkscreened at the University of California, Berkeley
As time moved on, stronger visual signs appeared signalling protest and discontent taking place in other parts of the world: the massacre of students, demanding the release of political prisoners, on the eve of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, or the death (in suspicious circumstances) of Stephen Biko, who was stirring up Black Consciousness in South Africa. Plus there were worldwide protests against the USA’s involvement in the Vietnam War (1965–73). But few were as furious or passionate as those taking place within the USA itself. There were campus demonstrations, songs and performances, publications, marches and rallies, strikes, city referendums, and draft-card burnings (as troops were dragged in by conscription). A massive amount of visual protest was also produced by artists, both known and unknown, art collectives and workshops, photographers, designers, ad agencies and the ordinary person/protester in the street. Their efforts produced a US protest poster movement that has yet to be surpassed, in quality or quantity. Add to that, the large amount of work produced by protests in other countries.6
The volatile atmosphere also fed social tensions waiting to erupt. The US Civil Rights movement started its decade of resistance with actions that challenged segregation (such as sit-ins at whites-only lunch counters), and marches that demanded the right to vote. Martin Luther King proclaimed his stirring ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in a mass demonstration in Washington D.C. in 1963. Within five years he was dead: assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Malcolm X, another influential voice, renounced non-violence and expressed the right of black people to define their own destiny. He also advocated armed self-defence. He was killed in 1965, and this spurred Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale to found the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) in 1966 on the principles of self-defence (against the police) and achieving economic justice and power for ordinary black people. They initiated over 60 community programs, including the Free Breakfast for Children Program, and grew from a group of fifty members in Oakland, California to a national organization with over 5,000 members. They also asserted a strong visual presence, through dress (black berets and leather jackets, Afro hair-style) and through their graphics, particularly their ‘revolutionary posters’ and newspaper, The Black Panther.7
Sexual politics was also transforming throughout this period. The Women’s Liberation movement worked to change the power politics to which women were subjected. Women explored self-identity and discovered a sense of self-worth through consciousness-raising groups, protests and other activities. They achieved strength and respect by the motivation and camaraderie of an entire movement (the ‘sisterhood’, aided by a strong graphic symbol) which tackled issues such as regaining control of their bodies, their health and medical care; gaining equal opportunities and pay in the workplace; and combating violence against women, in all its many manifestations. Sisterhood was global, and an international network of feminist groups and presses existed all over the world, producing journals and magazines. The sisterhood was also extremely creative. Feminist writers set about examining the way women’s achievements had been left out of history, and redressed the balance by producing ‘herstory’. Posters, postcards and other graphics were produced by feminist collectives, presses and workshops around the world, carrying vibrant renditions of ‘women’s issues’ or messages of solidarity.
Gay liberation was kickstarted by the Stonewall Riots of 1969, when the routine police raids enacted on a gay bar in New York City suddenly met resistance – and the gays openly fought back. The next day thousands took to the streets demanding ‘Gay Power!’, and riots and demonstrations continued throughout the following week. Demands for liberation by gays and lesbians brought the formation of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) who proudly claimed the word ‘Gay’ for their own, organised marches, dances, consciousness-raising groups and published the newspaper Come Out! It soon grew a network of groups and became the main generator of the gay and lesbian political movement. In 1970 the First Gay Pride March took place in New York City, another opportunity to emphasize gay presence and demand acceptance and recognition ‘in the street’.8
Energized by the New York scene in 1970, Britain founded its own version of the Gay Liberation Front that year. The 1967 Sexual Offences Act had recently been passed, which ceased the prosecution of men for homosexual acts. (Before that, people did not normally speak openly of their homosexuality or campaign in public.) Although the 1967 Act was not perfect, it opened new opportunities. So Britain’s Gay Liberation Front started the country on a course of ‘coming out’ (of the closet), and gay liberation was set to change lives both publicly at work and privately. The Pride March soon followed, and is now an international showpiece of costume, colour and self-determination.9
The Paris Riots of May 1968 have come to represent, both artistically and politically, the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s. The mass protest was a demand for change, aimed at Charles de Gaulle’s outdated government, and the strict, traditional values imposed by the education system. Unusually, students and workers joined forces in a general strike. Factories, offices and schools were occupied, and violent riots and demonstrations took place. The École des Beaux Arts went on strike, so students occupied the studios and print workshops. Under the name ‘Atelier Populaire’, they created an outpouring of dynamic, energized posters, produced by silkscreen, lithography or stencilling, and pasted them up in the streets all over Paris. The strike eventually came to an end, but the simplicity, directness and vitality of those posters has continued to influence students and practitioners of art and design over the years.10
By the mid-1970s, in the economic depression and (‘no future’) gloom of Britain, the revolutionary spirit of ‘Punk’ gave rise to self-styled creativity fuelled by subversion and the energy of the street. Young people poked fun at symbols of authority. They found creative expression in aggressive bands such as the Sex Pistols, the production of ‘fanzines’ (do-it-yourself small papers and magazines they could sell in the street), or the DIY assemblage of exhibitionistic fashion or ‘street style’. Vivienne Westwood was one of the fashion innovators of this time, creating ‘clothing as subversion’. The DIY aesthetic also impacted heavily on graphics. Jamie Reid gave Punk its graphic style and vocabulary. He worked with mixed typefaces, ‘ransom’ lettering, cut out or torn shapes, spontaneous layouts or screaming soapbox colours, and applied them to his posters, album sleeves and t-shirts for the Sex Pistols. Other subversive imagery could be found in more album artwork and fanzines, especially the extraordinary photomontages of the artist, Linder.11
A very different type of protest can be seen with the birth of the Earth Movement, also known at this time as the Ecology or Green Movement. It had its roots in the 1960s, when hippie drop-outs desired a better relationship with Mother Earth, and gathered force when the Oil Crisis of 1973 brought shortage scares to some countries. People slowly began to develop a sense of responsibility for their planet (and its limitations). The representative directory for alternative living, and self-empowerment, was The Whole Earth Catalog (1968–85). It expanded as time went on, with many editions and permutations, and has often been considered a forerunner of the internet. The heroes of the time were members of the environmental pressure group Greenpeace, founded in 1971, with their early attempts to ‘Save the Whale’.12
However, one issue that drew attention and concern was the development of nuclear power as a new, reliable and supposedly safe energy source. Safety concerns were justified when in 1979, an accident occurred in one of the reactors at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, which eroded public confidence in further developments. Another issue, often addressed by Australian poster groups, was the continued testing of nuclear bombs in the Pacific, a product of the Cold War (still taking place in the 1970s) which was considered to be affecting the environment as well as the lives of Pacific Islanders and future generations.13
Throughout the 1970s, news travelled of dictatorships and human rights abuses around the world. Argentina was by no means the only South American country led by a military government at this time, but it was possibly the one treated most cruelly. From 1976 until 1983, in an attempt to rid itself of any opposition, approximately 30,000 men, women and children were ‘disappeared’ by the military junta. Approximately 5,000 were dealt with by what was called ‘destino final’ (final destination). They were arrested, tortured and drugged. Unconscious, they were loaded on to military planes (known as the ‘death flights’), stripped and then thrown – alive but unconscious – out of the plane and into the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, as it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Their relatives had no idea what had happened to them. On 30 April 1977, fourteen women gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, demanding information about their kidnapped children. Every Thursday they came at 3.30p.m., and their numbers grew. When police told them to move on, they walked slowly in circles around the square carrying large photographs of the disappeared, and were soon known as ‘Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo’ (the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo). They became known internationally. After the military junta ended in 1983, following defeat in the Falklands War, the Mothers and (now) Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo continued their fight for justice and the truth. In 2018 they still maintain a presence in the Plaza de Mayo, although a small one, and the Grandmothers (Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo) continue their search online by means of a website (abuelas.org.ar), Facebook and Twitter. The search goes on.14
Spanish Women’s Liberation Movement poster 1970s
Artist unknown
Poster announcing a Revolutionary Feminist Conference c. 1973
Artist: Alison Fell
Cuban Revolutionary Poster Art
Day of the Heroic Guerrilla (Continental Che) 1968
Elena Serrano
Poster (silkscreen and offset)
Cuban poster art epitomized the spirit of revolution and change in the 1960s and has influenced artists and designers ever since. Cuba had finally achieved independence in 1959 by means of the anti-imperialist Fidel Castro and his guerrilla army, including the legendary Che Guevara. Cuba’s socialist leanings and rejection of US intervention and threats became embedded in the posters’ role and message. The posters were (and still are) admired for their economy and boldness of style, their clarity of communication (even when employing minimal elements or shapes), their simplicity in conveying abstract ideas and their vibrant use of colour. But they also excelled in their mission: they bolstered nationalism, celebrated heroes, supported and promoted domestic campaigns (agricultural, educational and so on) and expressed solidarity with movements or countries struggling for political change or national liberation all over the world, especially those engaged in armed struggle. The artists worked both independently or as a group, and production was handled by three main agencies, of which the best known was OSPAAAL: it’s distribution was massive and spanned the world, thanks to having the audacity to ignore artistic convention and fold the posters, then insert them in a magazine for mailing. The Cuban ‘Day of the Heroic Guerrilla’, 8 October, commemorates the life of Che Guevara (killed in Bolivia on 9 October 1967) and is one of the most celebrated of all Cuban posters. Utilizing Alberto Korda’s famous photograph of Che as a revolutionary, it projects both the legendary image and the dreams of liberation, reverberating throughout Latin America and the whole world.
Together with Vietnam 1971
Ernesto Padrón
Poster (offset)
This poster makes textural use of simple circular shapes which signify Vietnamese headwear, but the real achievement is the slow recognition of barely visible brown bars emerging from the red background (and the brown bars are guns). The poster depicts an aerial view of an advancing group of Vietnamese guerrilla fighters.
International Week of Solidarity with Latin America (19 to 25 April) 1970
Asela Pérez
Poster (silkscreen)
South America grasps a gun, conveying the notion of, or desire for, liberation throughout the continent whether achieved peacefully or, more likely, through armed struggle.
Day of Solidarity with the People of Palestine 15 May 1968
Faustino Pérez
Poster (offset)
Solidarity with armed struggles often brought the inclusion of weapons in inventive ways as part of the poster’s composition.
Counter-Cultures
Private Eye, No. 88 30 April 1965 1965
Illustration: Gerald Scarfe
Magazine
Founded in 1961 as part of the satire boom, the British satirical magazine Private Eye mocked everyone and everything, particularly the government, royalty and politicians (and continues to do so today). This front cover from April 1965 takes aim at current events. Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was newly elected on a narrow margin in October 1964. In December President Johnson pushed him to commit British forces to help the USA in the Vietnam War as part of the ‘special relationship’, but Wilson stalled. By April 1965, Wilson was still stalling, but trying to keep the special relationship intact (thus is depicted licking Johnson’s arse). Wilson would eventually say a resounding ‘No’ to committing British forces on the ground in Vietnam, a decision that would have met with the approval of much of the British public.
Oz ‘Cuntpower’ issue (No. 29, July 1970) 1970
Guest editor: Germaine Greer
Magazine (offset)
The British underground press was notoriously sexist, which would eventually lead to the creation of the feminist magazine Spare Rib in 1972.
Oz was one of the few British underground magazines to carry news of the new women’s movement, its most blatant statement being the ‘Cuntpower’ issue guest-edited by Germaine Greer. However, Oz’s ultimate aim was to shock, and some of the erotic pictures of naked women in other issues were more likely than not to get Oz labelled as sexist too.
Poster for the Youngbloods folk rock band (Family Dog No. 81) 1967
Victor Moscoso
Poster
Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the draft (conscription), the USA experienced a massive generation-clash with regard to dress, attitudes and values: the establishment (parents) versus dropping out (young people). Hippie culture found its epicentre in San Francisco. Rock music and drug culture co-existed, and the ‘underground’ – radical or far-out – publishing of newspapers, magazines or comics provided news, political debate and protest, or rude, over-sexed humour and satire. Psychedelic art and posterwork belonged, to a great extent, to rock music. The hippie rock music promoters, known as ‘Family Dog’, had a group of artists designing their promotional material who produced some of the most iconic rock music posters in existence. Their trademark was the use of vibrant, psychedelic colours, densely detailed composition and highly decorated hand-drawn type (which was often barely readable). The best-known artists, the ‘San Francisco Five’ as they were called, were Rick Griffin, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse and Wes Wilson, some of whom also worked on underground comics. The expression of artistic freedom, and energy of radical underground publishing, spread across the USA and on to Britain and Europe.
Desaparicion de Cueto y sus Ordaz 1968
Designer unknown
Sticker
On 2 October 1968, the eve of the Olympic Games in Mexico, 10,000 people crammed into the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, listening to student speakers make demands for civil liberty and the release of political prisoners. Not wanting student demonstrations to ruin the prestige of the Games, on the direct order of Díaz Ordaz, leader of the corrupt ruling party (PRI or Institutional Revolutionary Party), tanks and troops showed up and opened fire on the crowd. Sixty people were dead; hundreds were injured. The next day the president of the International Olympic Committee stated that he had been assured by the Mexican authorities that nothing would interfere with the entrance of the Olympic Flame into the stadium on 12 October. Elsewhere: a campaign immediately begins to boycott the Games, and students demonstrate in Nicaragua, Holland, Chile, Italy, France and Britain. The Mexican sticker shown here reads: ‘Get rid of Cueto and his Ordaz. Long live the students!’, a protest against the Mexican chief of police (Cueto) and the president (Ordaz).
Biko and Solidarity c. 1977
Designer unknown
Poster
Steve Biko was the founder of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa, and was particularly inspirational to the black student community. He was only 30 when he died. His death in detention (in suspicious circumstances) sparked the beginning of a global focus on apartheid in South Africa. This poster was a tribute from the ‘Black People’s Convention’, an organization of black consciousness groups which Biko co-founded in 1972.
Law and Order 1970
Klaus Staeck
Postcard
Klaus Staeck is a prominent, long-standing and respected figure in the world of creative arts and art education in Germany. He is also an activist, lawyer, graphic artist and publisher of posters and postcards (in Heidelberg) since the 1960s. Most importantly, he remains one of the chief critics and satirists of German politics and society, and his posters and postcards have traditionally been met with disapproval or outright anger by politicians and other ‘targets’. His critique has not been confined to Germany: Staeck’s graphic statements have been particularly acidic when taking on global issues (refugees, global warming and so on) and the damage done by global corporations and brands. The postcard shown here is an early one, commenting on a society of heavy-handedness and control. Over the years, 41 attempts have been made to legally ban posters or postcards by Klaus Staeck: not one has been successful.
Protests Against the Vietnam War
End Bad Breath 1967
Seymour Chwast
Poster
The US symbol of Uncle Sam appears in this poster as if in a toothpaste or mouthwash advertisement, and the ‘bad breath’ of which it speaks is the carnage being created by the USA’s role in the Vietnam War (in his mouth, planes are shown bombing villages). Produced by Seymour Chwast, co-founder of the renowned Push Pin Studios in New York, the poster is highly memorable and representative of the immense outpouring of anti-war protest posters produced at that time by artists, illustrators, design studios, ad agencies, and people in the street. There was tremendous variety in approach and treatment, ranging from line sketches and cartoons to the use of news footage or photography. Emotions were wide-ranging, including humour, cynicism and anger. But all joined together in a protest which became a movement unequalled in the visual arts ever since, and became a vizualisation of the public anger that was instrumental in forcing withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973. The posters remain an important graphic reference point today.
Q. And Babies? A. And Babies. 1970
Art Workers’ Coalition poster committee (Frazer Dougherty, Jon Hendricks, Irving Petlin) Photography: Ron L. Haeberle
Poster (offset)
This poster was produced in outrage at the disclosure in 1969 (by an ex-serviceman) of events that became known as the ‘My Lai Massacre’. The massacre took place in the South Vietnamese village of My Lai on 16 March 1968, when many Vietnamese civilians were killed by US soldiers. (The number of those killed varies wildly, from 106 to 347.) The people who died were initially described by a US Army spokesman as a Vietcong unit, but the photographs provided later by the Army’s own photographer proved otherwise, showing men and women, old and young. On the poster, the Art Workers’ Coalition used Army combat photographer Ron L. Haeberle’s photograph, which had been published in Life magazine. The title was a quote taken from one of the participants in the massacre who had been interviewed about the events that took place.
Fuck the Draft c. 1965
Dirty Linen Corp., New York City
Poster
Public protests within the USA against the Vietnam War took many different forms: citywide referendums, election campaigning, campus and mass demonstrations, marches, sit-ins, strikes and draft card burnings. The draft (conscription) was in operation from 1964–73; draft age was 18–25. Draft card burning started around 1965, and increased as time went on, but it was illegal and involved risking imprisonment.
EAT 1967
Tomi Ungerer
Poster
In protest against the Vietnam War, renowned artist and illustrator Tomi Ungerer self-published a series of posters that take a vicious view of the intentions behind the war. Using his bold, spontaneous, cartoon-like drawing style, he shoves an image of the Statue of Liberty down the throat of a crudely-caricatured southeast Asian man (intended to be Vietnamese), accompanied by the red-lettered command ‘EAT’. Hence the Vietnamese man must swallow American values, commercialization, democratic ideals and so on, whether he likes it or not. It is a violent image, uncomfortable in its rendering and unsettling in its message … but powerful nevertheless in its revulsion of the USA’s intentions.
Johnson, Pull Out Like Your Father Should Have 1967
Designer unknown
Poster
The brightly-coloured American eagle delivers a direct, insulting message to President Lyndon Baines Johnson in colourful razzmatazz type: the text is a pun on the phrase ‘pull out’. The message is, more or less: if you pulled the US out of Vietnam, the world would be a better place – if your parents had used restraint during sex and you had never been born, the world would be a better place.
Kill for Peace 1967
Carol Summers
Poster (screenprint and photo-screenprint on board)
Interestingly, this poster was produced before the My Lai Massacre, although it can’t help feeling related to the incident. The mother is huddling protectively with her children. We don’t know if she is from North or South Vietnam, but does it matter? Either way, she is looking directly at the viewer with deep suspicion; and the huge ‘X’ which fills the image represents a brutal action, giving the impression that she and her children are soon to be exterminated (if it hasn’t happened already). If produced in quantity and displayed as multiples (in repetition), the effect would be even more shocking.
Avenge 1970
Valley Daily News (Pennsylvania) via AP (photograph)
Poster (offset lithography)
US President Richard Nixon’s announcement in 1970 of the expansion of US military operations into Cambodia added fuel to an already volatile phase of student activism. The Ohio National Guard had previously been placed on the campus of Kent State University to keep anti-war activism under control. But on 4 May a midday rally on campus turned ugly, with students shouting abuse and throwing rocks and other objects, and guardsmen firing tear-gas canisters at the crowd. When matters reached fever pitch, one group of guardsmen opened fire on the students. Four students lay dead, and nine were wounded. A student photographer snapped a few pictures of Mary Vecchio kneeling and crying out in agony over the body of her dead friend. The photographs immediately hit national newspapers and magazines, along with the label ‘The Kent State Killings’. In the poster shown here, one of the photographs placed in the Valley Daily News has been enlarged to poster size and a message scrawled across it saying ‘AVENGE’. It promises further protests and reprisals and could have been produced anywhere in the USA. The incident sparked off memorials such as rock musician Neil Young’s song ‘Ohio’, which became an anthem in universities all over the USA due to its persistent, accusatory refrain ‘Four Dead in Ohio’.
Cover and inside spread, IT
(International Times, No. 133) c. 1970
Magazine (offset lithography)
Underground magazines based in London kept a watchful eye on anti-war protests taking place in the USA. This cover shows a well-known photograph of a US student demonstration at Columbia University in 1968. Violence and bloodshed were already common occurrences in campus riots by 1967–68, and the term ‘police brutality’ was ever-present in the reportage of the USA’s underground press.
The Civil Rights Movement
‘VOTE’ Marcher 1965
Photograph: Stephen F.
Somerstein
Having gained a leader in the young, charismatic Martin Luther King, the 1960s saw the US Civil Rights movement embarking on a decade of demonstrations, marches, riots and assassinations, in its effort to challenge segregation and achieve equality and voting rights. In 1965 attention was focused on the pivotal events surrounding the Selma Marches and Alabama’s denial of voting rights to black people. After a number of incidents of brutality inflicted on those who even tried to register to vote, mass demonstrations began and eventually Martin Luther King attended marches aiming to walk 50 miles from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital, to put forward their grievances. After two attempts to march (that were disrupted by violence and killings) the third march finally went on its way, guarded by US Army troops and National Guardsmen sent by President Lyndon Johnson. The march took five days. It started with 3,200 marchers but, with the nation watching and people joining along the way, it arrived in Montgomery with over 25,000. Five months later Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This photograph shows the zinc oxide that marchers put on their faces to prevent sunburn in the blistering heat, as well as the strength of conviction they carried.
Striking Sanitation Department Workers 1968
Photograph: Richard L. Copley
In Memphis, Tennessee (April 1968), 1,300 African American sanitation workers went on strike and marched in protest against low wages and unsafe working conditions, triggered by the deaths of two co-workers from faulty equipment. The signs/placards they carried were printed with a statement of significance that has resonated over the years: ‘I AM a man’ was a marker of identity and an assertive demand for recognition and rights.
Memorial Poster for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr 1968
Produced by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Poster (offset)
Martin Luther King delivered his stirring ‘I Have a Dream’ speech to a peaceful mass demonstration in Washington D.C. in 1963. He was assassinated five years later in Memphis, Tennessee. A well-loved and respected figure, his death was a devastating blow. But instead of weakening the movement, it made it stronger. An advocate of progress by peaceful means, King inspired strength and carried the spirit of the Civil Rights movement through its crucial early years, when it was subjected to vicious intimidation and violence. The Black Power leaders that followed would not have his patience.
Black Power and the Black Panthers
Libertad Para Angela Davis (Free Angela Davis) 1971
Félix Beltrán
Poster
In 1966 Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense or BPP on the principles of self-defence (against the police) and achieving economic justice and power for ordinary black people. Based in Oakland, California, they initiated over 60 community programmes, including the Free Breakfast for Children Program, and grew to become a national organization with over 5,000 members and Panther offices around the country. They also made the decision to (legally) arm themselves in defence against police harassment. The US government considered them a threat to the internal security of America, and by 1969–70 most of their leaders had been jailed and their offices attacked around the country. Political activist Angela Davis joined the Black Panthers in the late 1960s and worked to free the Soledad (Prison) Brothers held in California. In 1970 an escape attempt from Marin County’s Hall of Justice left the trial judge and three other people dead. Davis was implicated as the guns used had been registered in her name. She fled and was immediately placed on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted Criminals list. She was captured in New York, imprisoned for 18 months (during her trial), then cleared of all charges in 1972. During this time, an international ‘Free Angela Davis’ movement had taken hold. This Cuban poster was produced in 1971, calling for her release from prison.
Free Angela and All Political Prisoners 1971
Badge
In 1971, the words ‘Free Angela’ accompanied by the iconic Afro hairstyle could only have referred to political activist Angela Davis, imprisoned by the US government. Calls for her release, as shown on this badge, emanated from around the world.
Black Power salute 1968
Photograph
Photographer unknown
A historic moment occurs during the medal awards ceremony on 16 October 1968 at the Olympic Games in Mexico. In a silent and dignified gesture, two black American winners – gold medallist Tommie Smith and bronze medallist John Carlos – raised their fists in the Black Power salute while the US national anthem was played. The next day they were expelled from the US team, and the day after that three more black American athletes resolutely mounted the rostrum and as the national anthem was played, gave the Black Power salute.
(Image A) Promotional poster for The Black Panther newspaper, c. 1967–72
Posters for The Black Panther newspaper and the Black Panther Party (BPP) c. 1967–72
Design and illustration: Emory Douglas
Two posters
(Image B) BPP poster, The Slaughter of Black People Must Be Stopped! By Any Means Necessary!, 1969
Both Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton recognized the value of a strong visual presence and were responsible for the uniform that became the hallmark of the Black Panthers: black berets, black leather jackets and black slacks. Together this combination represented unity, while the Afro-haircut represented political style. Also, in the BPP newspaper, Bobby Seale was keen to communicate to the community through strong graphics as well as text (thinking that many people wouldn’t read endless columns of text). Seale created The Black Panther: Black Community News Service, the BPP newspaper. Eldridge Cleaver was writer and editor of the newspaper, and Emory Douglas – already a member of the Black Arts movement – became the BPP Minister of Culture, responsible for all of the graphics for the newspaper. He produced ‘revolutionary posters’ which could be bought, front and back covers for the newspaper (back covers were for use as posters), plus other illustrations of anger or empowerment. Douglas’s distinctive illustrations became the visual voice of the BPP. The newspaper grew a circulation of more than 400,000 weekly – and expanded to 52–60 tabloid pages.
Women’s Liberation: The Second Wave
Women Are Not Chicks 1970–71
Chicago Women’s Graphics Collective
Poster
Within the volatile climate of change and liberation taking place in late 1960s USA, a movement of young radicalized women organized to bring about an end to their oppression. The Women’s Liberation movement called upon all women to challenge the existing politics of male/female power relations. Their machinery for bringing about direct change included consciousness-raising, networking and direct action, as well as the celebration and promotion of women’s achievements. (Inspired by the ‘First Wave’ of early 20th century suffrage societies and militant suffragettes, they became the ‘Second Wave’.) Graphic formats such as posters, postcards and magazines were important carriers of the new ideas and messages to an international audience, and became part of the search for a new visual language that expressed women’s struggles and concerns. Radical poster groups often worked collectively: an important rejection of what was seen as ‘male’ hierarchical systems. This assertive poster by the Chicago Women’s Graphics Collective (one of their earliest) immediately takes issue with the undermining character of ordinary, so-called ‘innocent’ labels applied to women.
Protest 1973
See Red Women’s
Workshop Poster (silkscreen)
See Red Women’s Workshop became one of Great Britain’s best-known and longest-lasting women’s poster collectives (c. 1973–90). This poster rails against beauty contests and women’s objectification.
Feminist Symbol with Raised Fist 1970
Badge
The Women’s Liberation movement was fortunate in having a brilliant graphic symbol – the female biological sign – as its emblem. It developed a multitude of artistic variations (such as the one shown here, with a raised fist) and its simplicity allowed it to be scribbled or drawn by anyone on anything.
God Giving Birth (Universal Mother) 1968
Monica Sjöö
Poster reproduction of painting
Monica Sjöö’s painting ‘God Giving Birth’, depicting the goddess as the great cosmic and creative power giving birth to all life, became an important feminist icon in Britain. Its public exhibition led to Sjöö being threatened with prosecution for ‘obscenity and blasphemy’. Subsequently, in venues around Britain, it was removed by police and banned from exhibition.
My Wife Doesn’t Work 1976
See Red Women’s Workshop Poster (silkscreen)
In addition to celebrating women’s lives and achievements, See Red Women’s Workshop also excelled at visualising the notion that ‘the personal is political’, thereby attacking some of the established views and prejudices that affected women’s lives. This included the ‘hidden’ difficulties of holding an outside job while also caring for the home, and the overriding view that men’s work in the factory (or wherever) was of much greater value than women’s work in the home, as shown in ‘My Wife Doesn’t Work’.
With my Speculum, I am Strong! I can Fight! Mid-1970s
C. Clement
Poster (silkscreen)
This powerful cartoon shows Wonder Woman brandishing her speculum and clobbering representatives of US medical professions and institutions, plus religious, legal and other advisors (all male). The use of the speculum (for self-examination of the vagina) became an important part of women’s liberation consciousness-raising, and was symbolic of women’s desire to take over control of their bodies and their health. This was first demonstrated in the USA in 1971, and by 1975 the Women’s Health Movement had carried it to a dozen other countries.
Free Castration on Demand: A Woman’s Right to Choose 1970s
Pen Dalton
Poster (silkscreen)
In addition to poster groups, individual poster artists such as Pen Dalton (in Britain) produced work of extraordinary energy, celebration and anger, while expressing many of the same issues and concerns.
If it were a lady … 1979
Photograph: Jill Posener
Billboard
Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of the UK in 1979, heralding a new era of conservative politics. Tensions soon rose between the haves and have nots; and revolutionary movements such as feminism and the peace movement began an undeclared war with the government. Both groups chose spray can graffiti as one of the ways in which to show their anger. It was at this point that Jill Posener began to photograph and document the graffiti sprayed on buildings, billboards and other parts of the city environment. She filled two books with it: a record of social discontent, protest and, in some cases, desperation.
Women Working 1970s
Chicago Women’s Graphics Collective
Poster
This well-loved poster is from a well-known US poster group that proclaimed pride in women’s collaboration and achievement, while also warning off anyone wanting to interfere.
Women in Design: The Next Decade 1975
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
Diazo Poster
The first national conference on ‘Women in Design: The Next Decade’ was held at the Woman’s Building (Grandview Street site) in Los Angeles, a public centre for women’s culture founded in 1973 by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Judy Chicago and Arlene Raven. It offered an alternative space for feminist studies, the making and exhibiting of art and other activities, and also housed de Bretteville’s Women’s Graphic Center, offering teaching and print facilities to women as a way of making their own personal ‘voice’ or experiences visible. Sheila Levrant de Bretteville’s contribution to the Women’s Liberation movement, and her impact on the design world and design education in the USA, have been substantial and long-lasting.
Gay Liberation and Pride
First Gay Pride March, New York 1970
Photographer unknown
Photograph
The Gay Liberation movement was born in New York City with the Stonewall Riots of 1969. The Stonewall operated as a private club and drew a devoted clientele of young gay men. It was one of the few gay clubs where patrons could dance and cross-dress. Police routinely raided the place, but it is thought the management bribed them for protection and the raids were really for show. On 24 June, another raid took place by the NYPD’s First Division, rather than the local precinct, and on Friday 27 June, they returned to shut the Stonewall down (for good). But it was a day of reckoning: the clientele gathered in front of the bar. When the police van arrived to take away those arrested, the gays fought back. The riot gathered force from onlookers who turned on the bar with garbage cans and fire. The crowd dispersed the next morning, only to re-emerge the following evening as several thousand people took to the streets chanting ‘Gay Power!’ Riots and demonstrations continued the following week: Gay Liberation had begun. The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) soon grew a network of groups and became the main generator for the movement. One year later, on the anniversary of the riots – 27 June – the first Gay Pride March took place, as shown in this photograph: a celebration of gay presence and a demand for acceptance and recognition.
Gay Liberation Front Manifesto, London 1971
Pamphlet
London’s Gay Liberation Front, which was founded in the London School of Economics, produced a manifesto, published in 1971, which set out the key demands and principles of the GLF. Although the GLF had disbanded by the end of 1973, its manifesto (and the core principles stated in it) would influence gay rights organisations throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Gay Liberation badges from Britain 1970s–80s
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Gay Liberation movement in Britain had to continually defend its ground and demand its rights. Therefore the movement’s most memorable images tend to be street graphics and demo-graphics: placards, posters and stickers as part of demonstrations or marches. Personal identity statements, such as badges or t-shirts, also chronicle the movement’s campaigns, protests and general concerns.
Ink underground magazine 1971
Front cover
Ink was one of a number of underground magazines published in Britain. The 3 December 1971 issue is shown here, sporting a satirical ‘Gay Liberation’ front cover of Che Guevara in makeup (and probably promising to contain an article about gay issues inside).
May ’68 Riots: Atelier Populaire
(Image A) Capital
Atelier Populaire, May 1968 1968
Posters
The Paris Riots of May 1968 represented a mass protest against the rigidity of Charles de Gaulle’s government and the traditional education system. Workers and students joined forces in a general strike, and factories, offices and schools were occupied. The École des Beaux Arts went on strike; its students formed the ‘Atelier Populaire’, producing an extraordinary number of posters which were discussed and designed collectively, produced by silkscreen (usually) and pasted up in the streets all over Paris. The drama, excitement and brutality of the events produced posters with a simplicity of shape and directness of message that has been admired ever since. Certain designs were repeated in different variations: the silhouette of De Gaulle (with a long nose), the chimney stack of a factory that becomes a raised fist, and a vicious policeman wielding a baton or club: an indicator of the riot police or CRS (Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité), whose shield is sometimes marked with a Nazi ‘SS’ by the artist-protesters. The posters shown here hint at the speed, ingenuity and brilliance of it all.
Translations:
(Image B) The struggle continues
(Image C) Free information
(Image D) He’s the shitty mess! (De Gaulle)
(Image E) (From a design by Jacques Carelman)
1970s Youth Rebellion: Punk
‘God Save the Queen’ – The Sex Pistols 1977
Jamie Reid
Record cover (single)
In the economic depression of mid-1970s Britain, a youth revolution took hold through self-styled subversion fuelled by the energy of the street. The spirit of ‘Punk’ involved hating authority and the establishment, but finding excitement and creativity in the music of loud, aggressive bands such as the Sex Pistols, the enterprise of producing do-it-yourself fanzines, and the assemblage of DIY fashion or street style: the more exhibitionist and subversive, the better. Jamie Reid created a graphic language for Punk, working with mixed typefaces, collage, ‘ransom’ lettering, cut-out shapes or screamingly loud soapbox colours, and applied them to his promotional material for the Sex Pistols. He was therefore responsible for one of Punk’s most iconic images: the poster and record cover for the Sex Pistols’ single ‘God Save the Queen’, produced in 1977, the year of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee. It was a controversial single, with graphics to match: a well-known portrait of the Queen is more or less mutilated by placing a strip of ransom lettering across her eyes (the title of the song) and another across her mouth (saying ‘Sex Pistols’). Both the song and the graphics caused outrage and offence; the spirit of Punk had achieved its mission.
Not Another Punk Book 1978
Terry Jones
Cover and inside spreads
Terry Jones’ Not Another Punk Book produced a portrait of Punk’s inimitable, self-styled fashion or ‘street style’, and the people who wore it. It includes a young Vivienne Westwood wearing her ‘Destroy’ t-shirt. Westwood’s designs for Seditionaries, the Punk clothes shop she ran with Malcolm McLaren, created a new style direction that saw clothing as a kind of subversion. Terry Jones lived up to notions of Punk graphics with an anarchic sense of layout, limited colour and a mixture of typefaces (including the use of Dymo-tape, where lines of type are punched into long strips of industrial tape).
Sniffin’ Glue, No. 5, November 1976 1976
Mark P and others Self-published fanzine
Punk’s irreverence found a natural method of expression in cut-and-paste lettering, cheap photocopying, collage, felt-tip markers and other elements of DIY print or image-making. Self-published fanzines, or zines, were the masters of this approach, often dealing with bands, music reviews or the boredom of the everyday. (And some of their writers later transformed into journalists for national newspapers.) Sniffin’ Glue is repeatedly voted the best of the lot, and is considered to have kickstarted Punk’s zine explosion.
‘Orgasm Addict’ 1977
Design: Malcolm Garrett Photomontage: Linder
Record cover (single)
This record cover for the Buzzcocks, ‘Orgasm Addict’ was designed by Malcolm Garrett and used an iconic Punk image by Linder.
Punk photomontage c. 1977
Linder
Punk’s subversive imagery could be found in the art of music promotional material, record cover sleeves, fanzines and especially in the extraordinary photomontages of the Manchester-based artist, Linder. Often depicting the everyday (food, relationships, interiors, appliances) her graphic marriage of imagery from both men’s magazines (cars, porn) and women’s magazines (fashion, the home) created a disturbing world of possession and sexual demand indicative of that time period, and from which a new generation (of feminists) would plan their escape.
The Environmental Movement
The Last Whole Earth Catalog: Access to Tools 1970
Stewart Brand
Book: front and back cover, inside spread
The Whole Earth Catalog had its roots in the visionary thinking of 1960s US counterculture. It was a vast compendium of ‘tools’ for thinking and surviving, encouraging readers to question the power systems and attitudes of the time, while sharing information on the route to self-education and empowerment. Founded, edited and designed by Stewart Brand, entries included information about building materials, solar energy and bee-keeping as well as yoga, self-hypnotism and Tantra art – all accompanied by evaluative commentary and sources. A best-seller with many editions and permutations, the first catalog (1968) was 64 pages and the last (1971) was over 300, although there were further variations under the name of ‘Whole Earth’ thereafter. Its main delight was, in its later editions, its large format (about 36 x 28cm, 14 x 11in), its cluttered mass of images, headings and fonts, and its absence of a clear pathway through the material, which allowed the reader to make interesting connections between different worlds of information, leading some to see it as a forerunner of the internet. The front and back covers bear the final lasting statement – a photograph taken from outer space of the ‘whole earth’, beautiful and fragile. Its concluding comment: ‘We can’t put it together. It is together.’
Earth Day 1970
Robert Rauschenberg
Poster (offset lithography)
Although the seeds of environmentalism were sown in the 1960s, the First Earth Day (USA) was held on 22 April 1970 to focus public attention on environmental issues and consolidate the new, fast-growing, Earth movement. On Robert Rauschenberg’s poster for the event, the aggressively staring bald eagle became a symbolic guardian of the movement, emanating a sense of responsibility and a call to action, while surrounded by collected imagery of environmental devastation in the background. The Earth movement, or Green movement, would adopt more radical attitudes and campaigns in the 1980s, but Earth Day USA celebrations were revived in 1990 and continue annually, a tribute to (local) community action on environmental issues.
Whales? 1975
Randolph Holme
Magazine illustration (offset)
Founded in 1971, Greenpeace began its first campaign against whaling in 1975. This anti-whaling illustration is by Randolph Holme, contributor to the underground newspaper, Georgia Straight, which reported on early Greenpeace actions.
Critical Mass 74 1974
Artist: Arnold Saks
Poster
Maverick US lawyer and social crusader Ralph Nader took on the automotive industry for its poor safety standards in the 1960s (and won). His consumer rights movement also investigated nuclear power.
Die Grünen (The Green Party) 1979
Poster
This was the first major poster produced by Die Grünen, the West German political party, founded and led by the dynamic Petra Kelly in 1979. It states ‘We have only borrowed the earth.’
‘Daddy, What Did YOU Do in the Nuclear War?’ 1977
Toni Robertson and Chips Mackinolty (Earthworks Poster Collective)
Poster
Starting in the 1960s, France tested nuclear bombs at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific. As testing continued in the 1970s, nuclear disarmament protests combined with human rights and environmental protests, particularly in the minds of politicized Australian poster collectives. They produced posters campaigning for a ‘nuclear free Pacific’ well into the 1980s, in an effort to stop such testing as well as promote awareness of its effects on the Islanders. (It wasn’t stopped until 1995.) This poster is a parody of a well-known First World War recruitment poster, but its message has become distorted as an alert to other (nuclear) dangers, such as disease and generational human defects: both of the children are drawn with deformities.
International Solidarity
Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo c. 1977
Photographer: Daniel Garcia Photograph
In Argentina, from 1976 to 1983, up to 30,000 men, women and children were ‘disappeared’ by the military junta in an attempt to rid themselves of any opposition. (At least 5,000 of those were subjected to the ‘death flights’ known as ‘destino final’; they were drugged and, during the flight, thrown into the sea.) Relatives had no idea of their whereabouts or demise, and any enquiries went unanswered. On 30 April 1977, fourteen women gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, demanding information about their kidnapped children. Every Thursday they came at 3.30p.m., and their numbers grew. When told to move on, they walked slowly in circles around the square, carrying large photographs of the ‘disappeared’, and were soon known as ‘Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo’ (the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo). Some of the Mothers were tortured or killed, but their numbers still grew until hundreds took part in the protests each week, wearing white headscarves (bearing the name of a loved one) and/or carrying large photographs of those missing. After the military junta ended in 1983, the Mothers and (now) Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo continued their search to find out what had happened to their loved ones, or to at least identify their remains. Although, as of 2019, a small presence is still maintained in the Plaza de Mayo, much of their search now takes place online by means of the Grandmothers’ website (www.abuelas.org.ar), Facebook and Twitter.