The Haywain with Cruise Missiles
Poster
1983 (made)
1983 (made)
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The impetus for this photomontage was the proposal to house US nuclear cruise missiles in the East Anglian countryside. It was also a response to a Ministry of Defence leaflet, which portrayed the missiles in delicate watercolours as a harmonious part of the landscape. Here Peter Kennard combines two existing images to create a critical new meaning. He takes John Constable's painting The Hay Wain (1821), an idyllic depiction of the East Anglian countryside, and superimposes thrree nuclear warheads on the hay wagon. The subversion of a familiar icon of pastoral England achieves a chilling effect.
Object details
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| Materials and techniques | Offset lithograph |
| Brief description | 'The Haywain with Cruise Missiles', anti-nuclear poster for the Greater London Council, by Kennard and Gladwin, UK, 1983 |
| Physical description | Pastoral riverbank scene of Suffolk featuring a small cottage on the left and a horse drawn wagon in the mill pond at Flatford in the centre. Three nuclear warheads have been added to the wagon's contents by photomontage. |
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| Credit line | Gift of the American Friends of the V&A; Gift to the American Friends by Leslie, Judith and Gabri Schreyer and Alice Schreyer Batko |
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| Summary | The impetus for this photomontage was the proposal to house US nuclear cruise missiles in the East Anglian countryside. It was also a response to a Ministry of Defence leaflet, which portrayed the missiles in delicate watercolours as a harmonious part of the landscape. Here Peter Kennard combines two existing images to create a critical new meaning. He takes John Constable's painting The Hay Wain (1821), an idyllic depiction of the East Anglian countryside, and superimposes thrree nuclear warheads on the hay wagon. The subversion of a familiar icon of pastoral England achieves a chilling effect. |
| Bibliographic reference | This poster was one of eleven small format posters issued by the Greater London Council with the series title 'GLC Peace Posters Pack’, designed by Kennard with a foreword by E.P. Thompson. The first print run of 800 packs were sent out free of charge to various anti-war and anti-nuclear groups, community groups, schools and local authorities around the UK. A report from October 1983 reveals that demand for the posters, commissioned in February of that year, had far exceeded the initial print run. With the GLC receiving about fifty requests per day, a second print run of 2000 were produced to meet popular demand.
For further information, see 'Dispatches from an Unofficial War Artist' (Aldershot, Hampshire: Lund Humphries, 2000) and 'Beyond The Campaign for a Popular Culture’: Community Art, Activism and Cultural Democracy in 1980s London', a 2017 doctoral thesis by Hazel A. Atashroo, University of Southampton. |
| Other number | LS.1336 - Leslie Schreyer Loan Number |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.1501-2004 |
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| Record created | June 11, 2004 |
| Record URL |
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