This is a poster advertising Benson & Hedges cigarettes. From the early 1960s, Collett Dickenson Pearce established its reputation as a ‘creative agency’. It was noted for its use of leading photographers. In the late 1970s, with increased Government restrictions on cigarette advertising, it stretched the boundaries of advertising photography with its brilliantly surreal Benson & Hedges campaign for Gallaher. The images were originally inspired by the paintings of the Surrealist artist René Magritte (1898-1967). At first, cigarette packets were hidden in the imagery and there was no overt message. By the 1980s, some advertisements did not even show intact packets, and the only copy was the Government health warning.