Red

Jo Brocklehurst, Illustration for review of Die Eingeborene, 1999
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 1999, Brocklehurst was artist in residence at newspaper Berliner Zeitung during Berliner Theatertreffen, a festival of new German theatre. The paper wanted to revive the Weimar tradition of theatre reviews being accompanied by illustrations, rather than using photographs. Brocklehurst drew behind the scenes and from her seat during performances. She worked up images like this one overnight for publication the following morning. This illustration accompanied a review of Die Eingeborene, published in Berliner Zeitung on 11 May 1999.
Content warning: sex references
free all political prisoners - SOLIDARITY WITH THE AFROAMERICAN PEOPLE - AUGUST 18, 1971
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. They also criticised the foreign policy of the U.S.A. and supported the Black Power movement.
Beauty and the Beast at supper (illustration for Beauty and the Beast), c. 1875
Eleanor Vere Boyle (1825 – 1916) illustrated poetry and prose by some of the most popular authors of her time. She regularly drew and painted using ink and watercolour, sketching landscapes, animals and her children from life. She also made drawings from her imagination, often reflecting spiritual themes. This illustration is from Boyle’s 1875 retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a fairy tale where a woman is imprisoned by a monster and falls in love with him. Unlike other illustrated versions before or since, Boyle gave her beast walrus-like tusks and flippers. In several of her illustrations, Boyle used shell gold – a mixture of finely ground gold powder and gum arabic (tree sap) that would have been stored in a shallow seashell. In the final publication, the caption for this illustration reads, "After supper, every night, the Beast asked Beauty to be his wife: every night she said him nay."
Jacqueline Ayer, Little Silk doll, 1970
Jacqueline Ayer (1930–2012) had a career that spanned many creative fields. She began as a fashion illustrator, and later turned her hand to children’s books, textiles and garments, as she worked in New York, Paris, London, Bangkok, Hong Kong and across India. Ayer’s fifth book, Little Silk, is about a lost doll who eventually finds her way to a loving home. It takes place in Hong Kong, where Ayer lived with her daughters from 1963 to 1965.
JULY 26 - DAY OF WORLD SOLIDARITY WITH THE CUBAN REVOLUTION, 1975
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. This design promotes 26 July as a day of solidarity with the Cuban Revolution. The revolutionary 26th of July Movement led by Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2005
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This work is from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass, Brocklehurst’s final series. With an image of herself as a child as the centrepiece, Brocklehurst made hundreds of drawings that re-imagined characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. Her models were friends and dedicated club-goers who designed and made their own clothes. Works from the series were framed with bright plastic gemstones and hung on every available space at Brocklehurst’s home studio. She used metallic and neon inks that transformed under ultraviolet lights that she switched on for her guests in the evenings.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, Date unknown
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Karl Oppermann and student at Diskurs festival), 1986
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 1986 Brocklehurst visited the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany during Diskurs Festival. She drew Karl Oppermann and his students performing The Crazy Locomotive, a play written by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz.
Jacqueline Ayer, Untitled (Hindu dress and ornaments, 19th century), 1974
Jacqueline Ayer (1930–2012) had a career that spanned many creative fields. She began as a fashion illustrator, and later turned her hand to children’s books, textiles and garments, as she worked in New York, Paris, London, Bangkok, Hong Kong and across India. This drawing was used as one of the final illustrations printed in Ayer's publication Oriental* Costume (1974). *The term ‘oriental’ has colonial and racist origins. It was established during a period when European powers took political control of other countries and defined non-European cultures as ‘inferior’ to their own. ‘Oriental’ was commonly used in English-speaking countries until the late 20th century to group together people, culture and places in Northern Africa, East Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as objects thought to have originated in these areas. The term has been widely rejected today as it exoticizes and ‘others’ these diverse cultures. Ayer used the term here to collectively refer to modes of dress from Cambodia, China, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Thailand and Tibet.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, Date unknown
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
solidarity ZIMBABWE - March 17, c. 1970
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South.
Jo Brocklehurst, Poster for The London Drawings at Francis Kyle Gallery, 1981
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This poster was produced for The London Drawings, Brocklehurst’s first exhibition at Francis Kyle Gallery.
Jo Brocklehurst, Berlin Rehursell, Play Writer, Achim Frayer, Exstrawdeary, 1999
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 1999, Brocklehurst was artist in residence at newspaper Berliner Zeitung during Berliner Theatertreffen, a festival of new German theatre. The paper wanted to revive the Weimar tradition of theatre reviews being accompanied by illustrations, rather than using photographs. Brocklehurst drew behind the scenes and from her seat during performances. Brocklehurst attended the a rehearsal and performance of the play Die Eingeborene and drew its director, Achim Frayer.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Eryka Isaak), 1995
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1990s, Brocklehurst began drawing the fashion designers and performers finding space for experimentation in the fetish clubs of Soho and King’s Cross.
July 26 - Day of Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, 1969
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. This design promotes 26 July as a day of solidarity with the Cuban Revolution. The revolutionary 26th of July Movement led by Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2000s
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This work is from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass, Brocklehurst’s final series. With an image of herself as a child as the centrepiece, Brocklehurst made hundreds of drawings that re-imagined characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. Her models were friends and dedicated club-goers who designed and made their own clothes. Brocklehurst’s regular collaborator Isabelle Bricknall was the model for this work. Works from the series were framed with bright plastic gemstones and hung on every available space at Brocklehurst’s home studio. She used metallic and neon inks that transformed under ultraviolet lights that she switched on for her guests in the evenings.
Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (the sisters' husbands), c. 1875
Eleanor Vere Boyle (1825 – 1916) illustrated poetry and prose by some of the most popular authors of her time. She regularly drew and painted using ink and watercolour, sketching landscapes, animals and her children from life. She also made drawings from her imagination, often reflecting spiritual themes. This illustration is from Boyle’s 1875 retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a fairy tale where a woman is imprisoned by a monster and falls in love with him. Unlike other illustrated versions before or since, Boyle gave her beast walrus-like tusks and flippers. In several of her illustrations, Boyle used shell gold – a mixture of finely ground gold powder and gum arabic (tree sap) that would have been stored in a shallow seashell. In the final publication, the caption for this illustration reads, "One sister's husband, like Narcissus of old, worshipped his own beauty. But the other was full of learning."
AFRICA, 1969
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. Many OSPAAAL designers combined images of Indigenous art and craft with weaponry. Their aim was to argue for the right to self-determination and support liberation movements opposing colonial and imperial powers. However, the designers did not always know the meaning or origin of the iconography they used.
Content warning: weaponry
HIROSHIMA - DAY OF WORLD SOLIDARITY WITH THE STRUGGLE OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE (August 6), 1972
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. OSPAAAL marked the date of the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima by the U.S.A. as a day of solidarity with Japanese citizens.
Jo Brocklehurst, Kiti Cat, 1976
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Lo Cheng, The boy who wouldn’t keep still, 1942
The Puffin Picture Books series was established by designer and editor Noel Carrington (1895-1989). In 1933, artist Pearl Binder (1904-1990) sent Carrington a package of Soviet children’s books. “They were produced by the million on very cheap paper, but the drawings were vigorous and the colour delightful” he later remembered. These books inspired Carrington to edit a series of affordable books that would encourage “the child’s awakening interest in its surroundings... I felt that colour was essential, and that artists could... be more successful in books of this nature than the camera”. Many artists and illustrators worked on the series, adapting their ways of working to lithographic printing and the Puffin Picture Book format. Most of the 120 books in the series were printed on one large sheet of paper: one side in colour and one in black-and-white. Each sheet was cut, folded and stapled to create a softcover book.
Evgenii Charushin , Teremok [The cabin], 1931
Evgenii Charushin (1901-1965) was an illustrator and author, known for his children’s books on nature and animals. He said, “More than anything else, I love to depict young animals, touching in their helplessness and interesting, because within them one can already see signs of the full-grown beast.” This book is a cumulative story about a hole in an oak tree that is inhabited by a series of different animals as it gets bigger. It was published in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Russia at a time when children’s books became a mass media phenomenon. Over a ten-year period, almost 10,000 titles were published in several editions of up to 200,000. Many of these books took experimental approaches to storytelling, design and layout.
A History of the Countryside, 1944
The Puffin Picture Books series was established by designer and editor Noel Carrington (1895-1989). In 1933, artist Pearl Binder (1904-1990) sent Carrington a package of Soviet children’s books. “They were produced by the million on very cheap paper, but the drawings were vigorous and the colour delightful” he later remembered. These books inspired Carrington to edit a series of affordable books that would encourage “the child’s awakening interest in its surroundings... I felt that colour was essential, and that artists could... be more successful in books of this nature than the camera”. Many artists and illustrators worked on the series, adapting their ways of working to lithographic printing and the Puffin Picture Book format. Most of the 120 books in the series were printed on one large sheet of paper: one side in colour and one in black-and-white. Each sheet was cut, folded and stapled to create a softcover book.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Liz de Havilland), 1995
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1990s, Brocklehurst began drawing the fashion designers and performers finding space for experimentation in the fetish clubs of Soho and King’s Cross.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1988
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
CUBA - July 26 - 1968, 1968
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. From the 1960s, painter Raúl Martinez started working as a graphic designer, drawn to the social impact of posters and magazines. He was known for his portraits of well-known revolutionary icons, but to commemorate the 26th of July Movement he portrayed an anonymous Cuban patriot.
DAY OF THE HEROIC GUERRILLA - OCTOBER 8, 1968
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. From 1968, 9 October was designated as the ‘Day of the Heroic Guerilla’ to mark the anniversary of Che Guevara’s death. Helena Serrano was working at the Cuban government’s propaganda commission when she was asked to produce this poster, her only design for OSPAAAL.
Untitled illustration for Jackanory (Just So Stories: The Elephant's Child), 1973
Janina Ede (1937-2018) created covers and illustrations for over 100 books in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Many of her illustrations feature animals, which she drew from life. In the 1970s, Ede was commissioned to create large colourful illustrations for the BBC children’s television series, Jackanory. Each episode was dedicated to a story read by an actor, while specially commissioned illustrations were shown on screen during each programme. Some of these illustrations were for programmes featuring stories by author Rudyard Kipling. His ‘Just So’ stories were short tales that imagined how various animals attained their distinguishing features. Kipling set the stories in parts of India, West Asia and Africa. His descriptions of places and people included racist and exoticised stereotypes. Ede’s illustrations draw extensively on Kipling’s descriptions, and therefore reflect the racism in his work, as well as the prevailing stereotypical views that existed in 1970s Britain. Her own personal views are not documented. This storyboard illustration was produced by Janina Ede for Jackanory episode #1450, 'Just So Stories - The Elephant's Child'. It aired on 1 January 1973.
Book cover proof for "The Stories of Colette", 1958
British illustrator Janina Ede (1937-2018) created covers and illustrations for over 100 books from the 1950s to the 1980s. She designed the covers of several books by French author and pioneer of autofiction Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1986
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 1986 Brocklehurst visited the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany during Diskurs Festival. She drew Karl Oppermann and his students performing The Crazy Locomotive, a play written by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz.
DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH GUATEMALA - FEBRUARY 6, 1970
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South.
Content warning: weaponry
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Iggy), 1980s
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1980s, Brocklehurst drew a series portraits of members of the Kill Your Pet Puppy collective who were living in a squat close to her studio. Attracted to their anarcho-punk dress and ethos, she said “I felt that they understood very well what was going on in the world, what was in it for them”.
World Solidarity With PUERTO RICO, 1981
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. They also criticised the foreign policy of the U.S.A., often using US icons as part of visual metaphors. This poster advocates for Puerto Rican independence from the U.S.A. The Statue of Liberty represents the U.S.A. Its crumbling hand releases the Puerto Rican flag.
SAIGON - INTERNATIONAL WEEK OF SOLIDARITY WITH VIET-NAM (March 13-19), 1970
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. This poster was made during the war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, allied with the U.S.A. (known as the ‘Vietnam War’ and ‘War Against the Americans to Save the Nation’). René Mederos’ design repeats the word ‘Saigon’ (now Ho Chi Minh City). Behind the letters, the flag of the U.S.A. transitions into the flag of the group known as the ‘Việt Cộng’.
Jo Brocklehurst, Poster for Brocklehurst exhibition at 112 Greene Street, 1983
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This poster was produced for Brocklehurst, her first exhibition in New York presented by Francis Kyle Gallery.
Content warning: nudity
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Red Queen from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass) , 2002
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This work is from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass, Brocklehurst’s final series. With an image of herself as a child as the centrepiece, Brocklehurst made hundreds of drawings that re-imagined characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. Her models were friends and dedicated club-goers who designed and made their own clothes. Brocklehurst’s regular collaborator Isabelle Bricknall was the model for this work. Works from the series were framed with bright plastic gemstones and hung on every available space at Brocklehurst’s home studio. She used metallic and neon inks that transformed under ultraviolet lights that she switched on for her guests in the evenings.
Black Power - RETALIATION TO CRIME: REVOLUTIONARY VIOLENCE, 1968
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. They also criticised the foreign policy of the U.S.A. and supported the Black Power movement. Alfredo Rostgaard’s poster was inspired by the Black Panther Party logo. Some copies had a message printed on the back: “On the occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, we have published a poster that is now being circulated all over the world. We are sending you herewith a certain amount of these posters, which may be used in your country for the activities to be carried out in this regard.”
Untitled illustration for Jackanory (Mary Plain Goes to America) , 1972
British illustrator Janina Ede (1937-2018) created covers and illustrations for over 100 books from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the 1970s, she made illustrations for Jackanory, a BBC television programme. During each episode, an actor read a story, while specially-commissioned illustrations were shown on screen. For the televised version of Mary Plain Goes to America, Ede created paintings on large boards. These allowed the camera to pan across her image, showing a little at a time. BBC1 had only been in colour for three years, and so Ede used bold colours painted in gouache and reflective collaged foil to make the most of the new technology. This storyboard illustration was produced by Janina Ede for Jackanory episode #1427, 'Mary Plain Goes to America: Part 2 - The Most Popular Person on Board'. It aired on 14 November 1972.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Eve Ferret), 1978
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This portrait of performer Eve Ferret was made around the time Ferret was performing cabaret at London’s Blitz Club with James ‘Biddie’ Biddlecombe.
Untitled illustration for Jackanory (Just So Stories: The Elephant's Child), 1973
Janina Ede (1937-2018) created covers and illustrations for over 100 books in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Many of her illustrations feature animals, which she drew from life. In the 1970s, Ede was commissioned to create large colourful illustrations for the BBC children’s television series, Jackanory. Each episode was dedicated to a story read by an actor, while specially commissioned illustrations were shown on screen during each programme. Some of these illustrations were for programmes featuring stories by author Rudyard Kipling. His ‘Just So’ stories were short tales that imagined how various animals attained their distinguishing features. Kipling set the stories in parts of India, West Asia and Africa. His descriptions of places and people included racist and exoticised stereotypes. Ede’s illustrations draw extensively on Kipling’s descriptions, and therefore reflect the racism in his work, as well as the prevailing stereotypical views that existed in 1970s Britain. Her own personal views are not documented. This storyboard illustration was produced by Janina Ede for Jackanory episode #1450, 'Just So Stories - The Elephant's Child'. It aired on 1 January 1973.
Jacqueline Ayer, Design Thai tunic, c. 1965
In the early 1960s, Jacqueline Ayer founded textile and garment company Design Thai, funded by IBEC (International Basic Economy Corporation) under Norman Rockefeller. The first printed fabrics were inspired by ancient Thai designs from carvings, temples, porcelains, and printed cloths in the vaults of the National Museum Bangkok. Design Thai opened a shop in Bangkok in 1962, and expanded to offer a line of ready-to-wear clothing. In the years that followed, Design Thai went from strength to strength, opening branches in New York and Hong Kong.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Red Queen from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2002
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This work is from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass, Brocklehurst’s final series. With an image of herself as a child as the centrepiece, Brocklehurst made hundreds of drawings that re-imagined characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. Her models were friends and dedicated club-goers who designed and made their own clothes. Brocklehurst’s regular collaborator Isabelle Bricknall was the model for this work. Works from the series were framed with bright plastic gemstones and hung on every available space at Brocklehurst’s home studio. She used metallic and neon inks that transformed under ultraviolet lights that she switched on for her guests in the evenings.
Jacqueline Ayer, Untitled (High-ranking mandarin in ceremonial court dress), c. 1973
Jacqueline Ayer (1930–2012) had a career that spanned many creative fields. She began as a fashion illustrator, and later turned her hand to children’s books, textiles and garments, as she worked in New York, Paris, London, Bangkok, Hong Kong and across India. This drawing was used as one of the final illustrations printed in Ayer's publication Oriental* Costume (1974). *The term ‘oriental’ has colonial and racist origins. It was established during a period when European powers took political control of other countries and defined non-European cultures as ‘inferior’ to their own. ‘Oriental’ was commonly used in English-speaking countries until the late 20th century to group together people, culture and places in Northern Africa, East Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as objects thought to have originated in these areas. The term has been widely rejected today as it exoticizes and ‘others’ these diverse cultures. Ayer used the term here to collectively refer to modes of dress from Cambodia, China, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Thailand and Tibet.
Jacqueline Ayer, Design Thai dress, c. 1965
In the early 1960s, Jacqueline Ayer founded textile and garment company Design Thai, funded by IBEC (International Basic Economy Corporation) under Norman Rockefeller. The first printed fabrics were inspired by ancient Thai designs from carvings, temples, porcelains, and printed cloths in the vaults of the National Museum Bangkok. Design Thai opened a shop in Bangkok in 1962, and expanded to offer a line of ready-to-wear clothing. In the years that followed, Design Thai went from strength to strength, opening branches in New York and Hong Kong.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (drawing of Die Eingeborene), 1999
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 1999, Brocklehurst was artist in residence at newspaper Berliner Zeitung during Berliner Theatertreffen, a festival of new German theatre. The paper wanted to revive the Weimar tradition of theatre reviews being accompanied by illustrations, rather than using photographs. Brocklehurst drew behind the scenes and from her seat during performances. This drawing is from a performance of Die Eingeborene.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Josephine Leask), 2000
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 2000, Brocklehurst created a series of drawings in sessions with dancer Josephine Leask. Leask’s 1999 article Welcome to the Club, published in ballettanz magazine, described the ways that nightclubs were acting as alternative theatres for cutting-edge contemporary dance. These drawings were shown as part of Leask’s lecture-performance on the same theme at the 2000 Salzburg Festival.
Jacqueline Ayer, A Wish for Little Sister, 1960
Jacqueline Ayer (1930–2012) had a career that spanned many creative fields. She began as a fashion illustrator, and later turned her hand to children’s books, textiles and garments, as she worked in New York, Paris, London, Bangkok, Hong Kong and across India. In 1957, Ayer began working for designer Jim Thompson at his company Thai Silk. This experience fed into her book, A Wish for Little Sister, a story about a little girl from a weaving family who receives a birthday wish from a mynah bird. ‘Jim invited me to sketch from the back steps of his new house… A busy canal oozed by at the foot of the steps, and about fifteen feet across the water traffic, was a weaving village. It was noisily busy with the varied occupations of spinning, dyeing and weaving, laid out, it seemed, for me.’ - Bet Ayer
World Solidarity With CUBA, 1980
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. They also criticised the foreign policy of the U.S.A. In this design, the Cuban flag represents the Cuban revolution repelling the U.S. military, represented by the hand of fictional character Uncle Sam.
Content warning: weaponry
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1981
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Julian), 1982
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1980s, Brocklehurst drew a series portraits of members of the Kill Your Pet Puppy collective who were living in a squat close to her studio. Attracted to their anarcho-punk dress and ethos, she said “I felt that they understood very well what was going on in the world, what was in it for them”. This portrait is of Tony Drayton, founder of Kill Your Pet Puppy and punk fanzine Ripped And Torn.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Red Queen from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2002
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This work is from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass, Brocklehurst’s final series. With an image of herself as a child as the centrepiece, Brocklehurst made hundreds of drawings that re-imagined characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. Her models were friends and dedicated club-goers who designed and made their own clothes. Brocklehurst’s regular collaborator Isabelle Bricknall was the model for this work. Works from the series were framed with bright plastic gemstones and hung on every available space at Brocklehurst’s home studio. She used metallic and neon inks that transformed under ultraviolet lights that she switched on for her guests in the evenings.
Day of Solidarity with the People of GUATEMALA, 1977
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. For this poster, Alberto Blanco González used a photograph of Luis Augusto Turcios Lima taken at the 1966 Tricontinental conference. The 24-year-old was killed in a car accident later that year, but was remembered as a leader of the guerrilla group, the Rebel Armed Forces during the Guatemalan Civil War. Rather than creating formal portraits, many of OSPAAAL’s designers took inspiration from pop art and commercial advertising in their representations of political figures.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1983
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Josephine Leask), 2000
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 2000, Brocklehurst created a series of drawings in sessions with dancer Josephine Leask. Leask’s 1999 article Welcome to the Club, published in ballettanz magazine, described the ways that nightclubs were acting as alternative theatres for cutting-edge contemporary dance. These drawings were shown as part of Leask’s lecture-performance on the same theme at the 2000 Salzburg Festival.
Jo Brocklehurst, Man in a Green Suit (portrait of James ‘Biddie’ Biddlecombe), 1979
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. Man in a Green Suit is a portrait of performer James ‘Biddie’ Biddlecombe around the time he was performing cabaret at London’s Blitz Club with Eve Ferret. In 1980 it was shown in the ICA exhibition Women’s Images of Men.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Portrait of Colin Swift), c.1976
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (Beauty embracing the dying Beast), c. 1875
Eleanor Vere Boyle (1825 – 1916) illustrated poetry and prose by some of the most popular authors of her time. She regularly drew and painted using ink and watercolour, sketching landscapes, animals and her children from life. She also made drawings from her imagination, often reflecting spiritual themes. This illustration is from Boyle’s 1875 retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a fairy tale where a woman is imprisoned by a monster and falls in love with him. Unlike other illustrated versions before or since, Boyle gave her beast walrus-like tusks and flippers. In several of her illustrations, Boyle used shell gold – a mixture of finely ground gold powder and gum arabic (tree sap) that would have been stored in a shallow seashell. In the final publication, the caption for this illustration reads, "Ah dear Beast, she said: Alas that my unkindness should thus slay thee."
Jo Brocklehurst, Girl, 1976
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (Beauty with the watch dog), c. 1875
Eleanor Vere Boyle (1825 – 1916) illustrated poetry and prose by some of the most popular authors of her time. She regularly drew and painted using ink and watercolour, sketching landscapes, animals and her children from life. She also made drawings from her imagination, often reflecting spiritual themes. This illustration is from Boyle’s 1875 retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a fairy tale where a woman is imprisoned by a monster and falls in love with him. Unlike other illustrated versions before or since, Boyle gave her beast walrus-like tusks and flippers. In several of her illustrations, Boyle used shell gold – a mixture of finely ground gold powder and gum arabic (tree sap) that would have been stored in a shallow seashell. In the final publication, the caption for this illustration reads, "One cold March day, the little maid ran down to the outer court, with her new scarlet cloak, to wrap her friend the old watch dog in!"
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Karl Oppermann and student at Diskurs festival), 1986
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 1986 Brocklehurst visited the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany during Diskurs Festival. She drew Karl Oppermann and his students performing The Crazy Locomotive, a play written by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2002
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This work is from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass, Brocklehurst’s final series. With an image of herself as a child as the centrepiece, Brocklehurst made hundreds of drawings that re-imagined characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. Her models were friends and dedicated club-goers who designed and made their own clothes. Works from the series were framed with bright plastic gemstones and hung on every available space at Brocklehurst’s home studio. She used metallic and neon inks that transformed under ultraviolet lights that she switched on for her guests in the evenings.
Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (the wedding), c. 1875
Eleanor Vere Boyle (1825 – 1916) illustrated poetry and prose by some of the most popular authors of her time. She regularly drew and painted using ink and watercolour, sketching landscapes, animals and her children from life. She also made drawings from her imagination, often reflecting spiritual themes. This illustration is from Boyle’s 1875 retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a fairy tale where a woman is imprisoned by a monster and falls in love with him. Unlike other illustrated versions before or since, Boyle gave her beast walrus-like tusks and flippers. In several of her illustrations, Boyle used shell gold – a mixture of finely ground gold powder and gum arabic (tree sap) that would have been stored in a shallow seashell. In the final publication, the caption for this illustration reads, "Love is the magic, that makes all things fair."
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1979
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1982
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1981
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Content warning: nudity
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, Date unknown
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
INTERNATIONAL WEEK OF SOLIDARITY WITH LATIN AMERICA (APRIL 19 TO 25), 1970
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South.
Content warning: weaponry
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2002
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This work is from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass, Brocklehurst’s final series. With an image of herself as a child as the centrepiece, Brocklehurst made hundreds of drawings that re-imagined characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. Her models were friends and dedicated club-goers who designed and made their own clothes. Brocklehurst’s regular collaborator Isabelle Bricknall was the model for this work. Works from the series were framed with bright plastic gemstones and hung on every available space at Brocklehurst’s home studio. She used metallic and neon inks that transformed under ultraviolet lights that she switched on for her guests in the evenings.
About a Motor Car, 1946
The Puffin Picture Books series was established by designer and editor Noel Carrington (1895-1989). In 1933, artist Pearl Binder (1904-1990) sent Carrington a package of Soviet children’s books. “They were produced by the million on very cheap paper, but the drawings were vigorous and the colour delightful” he later remembered. These books inspired Carrington to edit a series of affordable books that would encourage “the child’s awakening interest in its surroundings... I felt that colour was essential, and that artists could... be more successful in books of this nature than the camera”. Many artists and illustrators worked on the series, adapting their ways of working to lithographic printing and the Puffin Picture Book format. Most of the 120 books in the series were printed on one large sheet of paper: one side in colour and one in black-and-white. Each sheet was cut, folded and stapled to create a softcover book.
Jo Brocklehurst, The Night After, 1976
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
FOR THE PEACEFUL AND INDEPENDENT REUNIFICATION OF KOREA, 1969
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. This poster advocates for the reunification of the Republic of Korea (known as South Korea), represented by the child on the left, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (known as North Korea) represented by the child on the right. During the 1960s, the governments of Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea formed close ties based on a shared opposition to the U.S.A. OSPAAAL’s designers regularly used adapted photographs from the organisation’s news desk. Photographs were sometimes used out of context, with the same photographs appearing in posters and magazine illustrations to represent different themes. The identity of the children in this photograph is not known.
DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE CONGO (L) FEBRUARY 13, 1972
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. Patrice Lumumba was the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, following the country’s independence from Belgian colonial rule. This poster promotes a day of solidarity with the country on the date that Lumumba’s assassination was announced. It combines Lumumba’s profile with an outline of the African continent to recognise his role as a leader in the Pan-African movement.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Anthony Gregory), 1995
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1990s, Brocklehurst began drawing the fashion designers and performers finding space for experimentation in the fetish clubs of Soho and King’s Cross.
Content warning: strong language
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1982
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1986
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. Brocklehurst began working in New York following an exhibition of her work there in 1983. She took paper and materials to the gay nightclubs of the Meatpacking District, drawing clubgoers like this one. Brocklehurst used neon inks that she could see under the ultraviolet lights.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1980s
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jacqueline Ayer, Oriental Costume, 1974
Ayer originally intended to set a children’s book in India after travelling there as a design and production consultant for the Indian government. She decided instead to put together a book featuring sketches from life and historical artworks, that documented the clothing of different social and cultural groups. Ayer wrote, ‘I had seen prints done by the Victorian colonials of fierce ‘tribal leaders and village belles’. The English were very good record keepers, though not always reliable. Their basic message was often self-enhancing. Beautifully drawn though, it was inspiring to imagine what their view might have been if they were less involved in propaganda.’ Oriental* Costume (1974) aimed to show the diversity of types and uses of clothing in Cambodia, China, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Thailand and Tibet. Ayer hoped her book would be different from colonial representations, however the way that the book combines and categorises cultural groups carries a colonial influence. The illustration seen here is featured on the book's front cover and titled 'Noble lady, Rajasthan, 18th Century'. *The term ‘oriental’ has colonial and racist origins. It was established during a period when European powers took political control of other countries and defined non-European cultures as ‘inferior’ to their own. ‘Oriental’ was commonly used in English-speaking countries until the late 20th century to group together people, culture and places in Northern Africa, East Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as objects thought to have originated in these areas. The term has been widely rejected today as it exoticizes and ‘others’ these diverse cultures. Ayer used the term here to collectively refer to modes of dress from Cambodia, China, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Thailand and Tibet.
“THE CHILEAN PEOPLE WILL SMASH FASCISM”, 1976
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. Figurative painter Ernesto García Peña’s only poster for OSPAAAL portrayed the socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende.
Content warning: weaponry
Vera Ermolaeva, Dve sobaki [Two Dogs], 1930
Vera Ermolaeva (1893-1937) was an illustrator and painter. In 1918 she founded Segodnia [Today] collective in Petrograd; the first Soviet children’s book publisher. She illustrated children’s books throughout the 1920s and 30s for Detgiz, The State Children’s Publishing House in Russia. This book is one of a series of 12 fables by Ivan Krylov illustrated by Ermolaeva. Two dogs with the same owner discuss their different lives living indoors and out in the yard. It was published in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Russia at a time when children’s books became a mass media phenomenon. Over a ten-year period, almost 10,000 titles were published in several editions of up to 200,000. Many of these books took experimental approaches to storytelling, design and layout.
Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (Beauty and her two sisters), c. 1875
Eleanor Vere Boyle (1825 – 1916) illustrated poetry and prose by some of the most popular authors of her time. She regularly drew and painted using ink and watercolour, sketching landscapes, animals and her children from life. She also made drawings from her imagination, often reflecting spiritual themes. This illustration is from Boyle’s 1875 retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a fairy tale where a woman is imprisoned by a monster and falls in love with him. Unlike other illustrated versions before or since, Boyle gave her beast walrus-like tusks and flippers. In several of her illustrations, Boyle used shell gold – a mixture of finely ground gold powder and gum arabic (tree sap) that would have been stored in a shallow seashell. In the final publication, the caption for this illustration reads, "In the King's Garden the feast is ready, and the minstrels wait."
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Josephine Leask), 2000
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 2000, Brocklehurst created a series of drawings in sessions with dancer Josephine Leask. Leask’s 1999 article Welcome to the Club, published in ballettanz magazine, described the ways that nightclubs were acting as alternative theatres for cutting-edge contemporary dance. These drawings were shown as part of Leask’s lecture-performance on the same theme at the 2000 Salzburg Festival.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait with Val Drayton (left)), 1982
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1980s, Brocklehurst drew a series portraits of members of the Kill Your Pet Puppy collective who were living in a squat close to her studio. Attracted to their anarcho-punk dress and ethos, she said “I felt that they understood very well what was going on in the world, what was in it for them”.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1984
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Content warning: nudity
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1980
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Isabelle Bricknall and Anthony Gregory), 1995
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1990s, Brocklehurst began drawing the fashion designers and performers finding space for experimentation in the fetish clubs of Soho and King’s Cross. This portrait is of Brocklehurst’s regular collaborator Isabelle Bricknall, whose collection of steel ‘body armour’ (constructed by Anthony Gregory) was designed as ‘protection’ for nights on the fetish scene.
Content warning: strong language
GUINEA - Day of World Solidarity with the Struggle of the People of so-called Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde (August 3), 1970
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. This poster was designed to mark a day of solidarity with liberation movements in Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau seeking independence from Portuguese colonial rule, on the date of the Pidjiguiti massacre.
Content warning: weaponry
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, Unknown
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Caterpillar from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2002
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. This work is from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass, Brocklehurst’s final series. With an image of herself as a child as the centrepiece, Brocklehurst made hundreds of drawings that re-imagined characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice novels. Her models were friends and dedicated club-goers who designed and made their own clothes. Works from the series were framed with bright plastic gemstones and hung on every available space at Brocklehurst’s home studio. She used metallic and neon inks that transformed under ultraviolet lights that she switched on for her guests in the evenings.
Day of Solidarity with Guatemala - february 6, 1968
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. This poster was issued in support of leftist rebels fighting against the Guatemalan government during the Guatemalan Civil War. It shows a Mayan god holding an assault rifle. Many OSPAAAL designers combined images of Indigenous art and craft with weaponry. Their aim was to argue for the right to self-determination and support liberation movements opposing oppressive powers. However, the designers did not always know the meaning or origin of the iconography they used.
Content warning: weaponry
Punch & Judy, 1942
The Puffin Picture Books series was established by designer and editor Noel Carrington (1895-1989). In 1933, artist Pearl Binder (1904-1990) sent Carrington a package of Soviet children’s books. “They were produced by the million on very cheap paper, but the drawings were vigorous and the colour delightful” he later remembered. These books inspired Carrington to edit a series of affordable books that would encourage “the child’s awakening interest in its surroundings... I felt that colour was essential, and that artists could... be more successful in books of this nature than the camera”. Many artists and illustrators worked on the series, adapting their ways of working to lithographic printing and the Puffin Picture Book format. Most of the 120 books in the series were printed on one large sheet of paper: one side in colour and one in black-and-white. Each sheet was cut, folded and stapled to create a softcover book.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1984
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jacqueline Ayer, Untitled (Himalayan lama in procession), 1974
Jacqueline Ayer (1930–2012) had a career that spanned many creative fields. She began as a fashion illustrator, and later turned her hand to children’s books, textiles and garments, as she worked in New York, Paris, London, Bangkok, Hong Kong and across India. This drawing was used as one of the final illustrations printed in Ayer's publication Oriental* Costume (1974). *The term ‘oriental’ has colonial and racist origins. It was established during a period when European powers took political control of other countries and defined non-European cultures as ‘inferior’ to their own. ‘Oriental’ was commonly used in English-speaking countries until the late 20th century to group together people, culture and places in Northern Africa, East Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as objects thought to have originated in these areas. The term has been widely rejected today as it exoticizes and ‘others’ these diverse cultures. Ayer used the term here to collectively refer to modes of dress from Cambodia, China, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Thailand and Tibet.
Jacqueline Ayer, Little Silk, 1970
Jacqueline Ayer (1930–2012) had a career that spanned many creative fields. She began as a fashion illustrator, and later turned her hand to children’s books, textiles and garments, as she worked in New York, Paris, London, Bangkok, Hong Kong and across India. Ayer’s fifth book, Little Silk, is about a lost doll who eventually finds her way to a loving home. It takes place in Hong Kong, where Ayer lived with her daughters from 1963 to 1965.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1976
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Lev Mordvinov, Zagadki [Riddles], 1929
In this book, a series of riddles about household objects are paired with illustrations of them. It was published in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Russia at a time when children’s books became a mass media phenomenon. Over a ten-year period, almost 10,000 titles were published in several editions of up to 200,000. Many of these books took experimental approaches to storytelling, design and layout.
GIRON - 30th ANNIVERSARY - SOCIALISM OR DEATH, 1969
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. In 1961, a military group sponsored by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency invaded Cuba in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. Eladio Rivadulla Pérez used a press photograph of Castro jumping from a tank for his commemorative poster design.
Content warning: weaponry
DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF PUERTO RICO (SEPTEMBER 23), 1969
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. In this design, a three-point cemí figure breathes fire in defiance of the U.S. corporations operating in Puerto Rico. For the Indigenous Taíno people of the Caribbean, a cemí is a representation of a deity, and at the same time a living being with its own vital force. Many OSPAAAL designers used Indigenous imagery to argue for the right to self-determination and support liberation movements opposing oppressive powers. However, the designers did not always know the full meaning or origin of the iconography they used.
Butterflies in Britain, 1943
The Puffin Picture Books series was established by designer and editor Noel Carrington (1895-1989). In 1933, artist Pearl Binder (1904-1990) sent Carrington a package of Soviet children’s books. “They were produced by the million on very cheap paper, but the drawings were vigorous and the colour delightful” he later remembered. These books inspired Carrington to edit a series of affordable books that would encourage “the child’s awakening interest in its surroundings... I felt that colour was essential, and that artists could... be more successful in books of this nature than the camera”. Many artists and illustrators worked on the series, adapting their ways of working to lithographic printing and the Puffin Picture Book format. Most of the 120 books in the series were printed on one large sheet of paper: one side in colour and one in black-and-white. Each sheet was cut, folded and stapled to create a softcover book.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1999
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 1999, Brocklehurst was artist in residence at newspaper Berliner Zeitung during Berliner Theatertreffen, a festival of new German theatre. The paper wanted to revive the Weimar tradition of theatre reviews being accompanied by illustrations, rather than using photographs. Brocklehurst drew behind the scenes and from her seat during performances.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1986
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. Brocklehurst began working in New York following an exhibition of her work there in 1983. She took paper and materials to the gay nightclubs of the Meatpacking District, drawing clubgoers like this one. Brocklehurst used neon inks that she could see under the ultraviolet lights.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (drawing of the Spiegelzelt), 1999
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 1999, Brocklehurst was artist in residence at newspaper Berliner Zeitung during Berliner Theatertreffen, a festival of new German theatre. The paper wanted to revive the Weimar tradition of theatre reviews being accompanied by illustrations, rather than using photographs. Brocklehurst drew behind the scenes and from her seat during performances. This illustration accompanied a review of play Onkel Wanja, published in Berliner Zeitung on 5 May 1999, but is a drawing of the Spiegelzelt, a tent used for talks and evening events.
DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE JAPANESE PEOPLE (AUGUST 6), 1968
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. OSPAAAL marked the date of the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima by the U.S.A. as a day of solidarity with Japanese citizens. The design appears to incorporate a photograph of Raijin, a Japanese god of thunder, lightning and storms.
Untitled, c. 1968
British illustrator Janina Ede (1937-2018) created covers and illustrations for over 100 books from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the 1960s, Ede began working on children’s books. The Patchwork Pack (1968) by Freda Collins is about a group of ‘Brownies’ – the name given to members of the worldwide girl-guiding movement.
Untitled, 1969
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL. Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. They also criticised the foreign policy of the U.S.A. Alfredo Rostgaard was OSPAAAL’s creative director from 1966 to 1976. His folded poster of US president Richard Nixon unfolds to gradually transform him into a demonic figure.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1981
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Untitled illustration for Jackanory (Mary Plain Goes to America) , 1972
British illustrator Janina Ede (1937-2018) created covers and illustrations for over 100 books from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the 1970s, she made illustrations for Jackanory, a BBC television programme. During each episode, an actor read a story, while specially-commissioned illustrations were shown on screen. For the televised version of Mary Plain Goes to America, Ede created paintings on large boards. These allowed the camera to pan across her image, showing a little at a time. BBC1 had only been in colour for three years, and so Ede used bold colours painted in gouache and reflective collaged foil to make the most of the new technology. This storyboard illustration was produced by Janina Ede for Jackanory episode #1426, 'Mary Plain Goes to America: Part 1 - An invitation'. It aired on 13 November 1972.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Val Drayton and Lou Challice), 1981
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1980s, Brocklehurst drew a series portraits of members of the Kill Your Pet Puppy collective who were living in a squat close to her studio. Attracted to their anarcho-punk dress and ethos, she said “I felt that they understood very well what was going on in the world, what was in it for them”.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (drawing of “Ich bin ja so allein”: Reflexionen mit und ohne Klavier), 1999
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 1999, Brocklehurst was artist in residence at newspaper Berliner Zeitung during Berliner Theatertreffen, a festival of new German theatre. The paper wanted to revive the Weimar tradition of theatre reviews being accompanied by illustrations, rather than using photographs. Brocklehurst drew behind the scenes and from her seat during performances. This drawing is of a festival event, “Ich bin ja so allein”: Reflexionen mit und ohne Klavier.
A Child’s Alphabet, 1945
The Puffin Picture Books series was established by designer and editor Noel Carrington (1895-1989). In 1933, artist Pearl Binder (1904-1990) sent Carrington a package of Soviet children’s books. “They were produced by the million on very cheap paper, but the drawings were vigorous and the colour delightful” he later remembered. These books inspired Carrington to edit a series of affordable books that would encourage “the child’s awakening interest in its surroundings... I felt that colour was essential, and that artists could... be more successful in books of this nature than the camera”. Many artists and illustrators worked on the series, adapting their ways of working to lithographic printing and the Puffin Picture Book format. Most of the 120 books in the series were printed on one large sheet of paper: one side in colour and one in black-and-white. Each sheet was cut, folded and stapled to create a softcover book.
Jacqueline Ayer, Nu Dang and His Kite, 1959
After moving to Bangkok in 1956, Jacqueline learnt Thai as she was punted around the canals (‘klongs’) of the city by her gardener in a canoe. She would take piles of typewriter paper with her to sketch local people at work. Whilst visiting New York she showed these to Margaret McElderry, a children’s book editor at Harcourt Brace, and the response was positive. She was advised to write a story from what she saw around her in Thailand, and the result was her first children’s book, Nu Dang and His Kite. Ayer wrote and illustrated five of her own books, four of which gave insight into 1960s Thailand to US and UK audiences, while the fifth was set in Hong Kong.
HIROSHIMA - SOLIDARITY WITH THE JAPANESE PEOPLE, 1972
Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South. OSPAAAL marked the date of the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima by the U.S.A. as a day of solidarity with Japanese citizens. By collaging fragments of a photograph and burned paper, Daniel García stressed the horrific consequences of deploying nuclear weapons. OSPAAAL’s designers regularly used adapted photographs from the organisation’s news desk. Photographs were sometimes used out of context, with the same photographs appearing in posters and magazine illustrations to represent different themes. The identity of the person in this photograph is not recorded.
Content warning: Injury, burns
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1983
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1981
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Broken Dolls, Date unknown
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Tony Drayton), 1981
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1980s, Brocklehurst drew a series portraits of members of the Kill Your Pet Puppy collective who were living in a squat close to her studio. Attracted to their anarcho-punk dress and ethos, she said “I felt that they understood very well what was going on in the world, what was in it for them”. This portrait is of Tony Drayton, founder of Kill Your Pet Puppy and punk fanzine Ripped And Torn.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Josephine Leask), 2000
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In 2000, Brocklehurst created a series of drawings in sessions with dancer Josephine Leask. Leask’s 1999 article Welcome to the Club, published in ballettanz magazine, described the ways that nightclubs were acting as alternative theatres for cutting-edge contemporary dance. These drawings were shown as part of Leask’s lecture-performance on the same theme at the 2000 Salzburg Festival.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Fia Bergsren), 1995
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes. In the 1990s, Brocklehurst began drawing the fashion designers and performers finding space for experimentation in the fetish clubs of Soho and King’s Cross.
Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1984
Jo (Josephine) Brocklehurst (1935 - 2006) studied at Central Saint Martins and began her career as a fashion illustrator. She later focused on portraiture, drawing directly from models at her studio in West Hampstead and in nightclubs and theatres in Berlin, London and New York. Her work documents the alternative subcultures of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that went on to shape mainstream fashion and performance scenes.
The Story of Ming, 1944
The Puffin Picture Books series was established by designer and editor Noel Carrington (1895-1989). In 1933, artist Pearl Binder (1904-1990) sent Carrington a package of Soviet children’s books. “They were produced by the million on very cheap paper, but the drawings were vigorous and the colour delightful” he later remembered. These books inspired Carrington to edit a series of affordable books that would encourage “the child’s awakening interest in its surroundings... I felt that colour was essential, and that artists could... be more successful in books of this nature than the camera”. Many artists and illustrators worked on the series, adapting their ways of working to lithographic printing and the Puffin Picture Book format. Most of the 120 books in the series were printed on one large sheet of paper: one side in colour and one in black-and-white. Each sheet was cut, folded and stapled to create a softcover book.
A Book of Swimming, 1945
The Puffin Picture Books series was established by designer and editor Noel Carrington (1895-1989). In 1933, artist Pearl Binder (1904-1990) sent Carrington a package of Soviet children’s books. “They were produced by the million on very cheap paper, but the drawings were vigorous and the colour delightful” he later remembered. These books inspired Carrington to edit a series of affordable books that would encourage “the child’s awakening interest in its surroundings... I felt that colour was essential, and that artists could... be more successful in books of this nature than the camera”. Many artists and illustrators worked on the series, adapting their ways of working to lithographic printing and the Puffin Picture Book format. Most of the 120 books in the series were printed on one large sheet of paper: one side in colour and one in black-and-white. Each sheet was cut, folded and stapled to create a softcover book.

Jo Brocklehurst, Illustration for review of Die Eingeborene, 1999

free all political prisoners - SOLIDARITY WITH THE AFROAMERICAN PEOPLE - AUGUST 18, 1971

Beauty and the Beast at supper (illustration for Beauty and the Beast), c. 1875

Jacqueline Ayer, Little Silk doll, 1970

JULY 26 - DAY OF WORLD SOLIDARITY WITH THE CUBAN REVOLUTION, 1975

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2005

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, Date unknown

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Karl Oppermann and student at Diskurs festival), 1986

Jacqueline Ayer, Untitled (Hindu dress and ornaments, 19th century), 1974

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, Date unknown

solidarity ZIMBABWE - March 17, c. 1970

Jo Brocklehurst, Poster for The London Drawings at Francis Kyle Gallery, 1981

Jo Brocklehurst, Berlin Rehursell, Play Writer, Achim Frayer, Exstrawdeary, 1999

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Eryka Isaak), 1995

July 26 - Day of Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, 1969

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2000s

Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (the sisters' husbands), c. 1875

AFRICA, 1969

HIROSHIMA - DAY OF WORLD SOLIDARITY WITH THE STRUGGLE OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE (August 6), 1972

Jo Brocklehurst, Kiti Cat, 1976

Lo Cheng, The boy who wouldn’t keep still, 1942

Evgenii Charushin , Teremok [The cabin], 1931

A History of the Countryside, 1944

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Liz de Havilland), 1995

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1988

CUBA - July 26 - 1968, 1968

DAY OF THE HEROIC GUERRILLA - OCTOBER 8, 1968

Untitled illustration for Jackanory (Just So Stories: The Elephant's Child), 1973

Book cover proof for "The Stories of Colette", 1958

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1986

DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH GUATEMALA - FEBRUARY 6, 1970

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Iggy), 1980s

World Solidarity With PUERTO RICO, 1981

SAIGON - INTERNATIONAL WEEK OF SOLIDARITY WITH VIET-NAM (March 13-19), 1970

Jo Brocklehurst, Poster for Brocklehurst exhibition at 112 Greene Street, 1983

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Red Queen from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass) , 2002

Black Power - RETALIATION TO CRIME: REVOLUTIONARY VIOLENCE, 1968

Untitled illustration for Jackanory (Mary Plain Goes to America) , 1972

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Eve Ferret), 1978

Untitled illustration for Jackanory (Just So Stories: The Elephant's Child), 1973

Jacqueline Ayer, Design Thai tunic, c. 1965

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Red Queen from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2002

Jacqueline Ayer, Untitled (High-ranking mandarin in ceremonial court dress), c. 1973

Jacqueline Ayer, Design Thai dress, c. 1965

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (drawing of Die Eingeborene), 1999

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Josephine Leask), 2000

Jacqueline Ayer, A Wish for Little Sister, 1960

World Solidarity With CUBA, 1980

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1981

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Julian), 1982

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Red Queen from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2002

Day of Solidarity with the People of GUATEMALA, 1977

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1983

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Josephine Leask), 2000

Jo Brocklehurst, Man in a Green Suit (portrait of James ‘Biddie’ Biddlecombe), 1979

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Portrait of Colin Swift), c.1976

Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (Beauty embracing the dying Beast), c. 1875

Jo Brocklehurst, Girl, 1976

Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (Beauty with the watch dog), c. 1875

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (Karl Oppermann and student at Diskurs festival), 1986

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2002

Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (the wedding), c. 1875

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1979

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1982

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1981

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, Date unknown

INTERNATIONAL WEEK OF SOLIDARITY WITH LATIN AMERICA (APRIL 19 TO 25), 1970

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (from Brocklehurst Through the Looking-Glass), 2002

About a Motor Car, 1946

Jo Brocklehurst, The Night After, 1976

FOR THE PEACEFUL AND INDEPENDENT REUNIFICATION OF KOREA, 1969

DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE CONGO (L) FEBRUARY 13, 1972

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled (portrait of Anthony Gregory), 1995

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1982

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1986

Jo Brocklehurst, Untitled, 1980s

Jacqueline Ayer, Oriental Costume, 1974

“THE CHILEAN PEOPLE WILL SMASH FASCISM”, 1976

Vera Ermolaeva, Dve sobaki [Two Dogs], 1930

Illustration for Beauty and the Beast (Beauty and her two sisters), c. 1875