Two works acquired by the V&A

Two of our screenprints have just been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum for their permanent collection.

Royal Poster (left aligned) and Imperial Poster (fully justified), are both works from our An Unknown Soldier series, which mediatates on the meaning of a memorial to an unknown soldier in the age of DNA testing. Does he now embody our desire to ignore the past, rather than remember?

We used three bespoke fonts to evoke the anatomy of trench warfare and, using old-fashioned paper sizes, we alluded to call-up posters, papers, and martial instruction manuals. The block letters are topped with patterns redolent of security envelopes. Royal Poster (Left Aligned) is red and silver on turquoise paper and reads, ‘Thee must hebeas n corpus fur tet corps un see’, roughly translated, ‘you must have a body for this body of men, I see’. The fluorescent yellow, cyan and silver Imperial Poster (fully justified) reads ‘Let nuh great unborn pre-empt nuh dead’.

As well as the National Art Library, the V&A Museum has a wonderful study room where people can look at the extensive collection of prints and drawings without an appointment. You can tell as soon as you walk into the Sackler Centre that this is an institution engrossed in contemporary artistry and craftsmanship, with a thriving events programme.

Many of our prints and publications have been acquired by major collections:

Tate
University College London
Chelsea College of Art
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Winchester School of Art
De Bijloke, Ghent
Trykkeriet, Bergen

and now the Victoria and Albert Museum, ensuring that however poorly we maintain our toaster, our work will avoid destruction.