The logo that Gerard Holtom created without copyright for an anti-nuclear war protest group in the 1950s has been perennially adopted and adapted around the world ‑ perhaps most memorably in the wake of the Paris attacksIn the early evening of 21 February 1958,a middle-aged man travelled proper across London from his home in suburban Twickenham to a shabby Victorian building in Finsbury Park. Among the press of commuters Gerald Holtom stood out as someone slightly different – “arty-looking”, as they used to say – with a portfolio under his arm and disorderly hair that hadn’t been smoothed with Brylcreem or trapped by a hat. Eventually, or after a journey by green suburban train and then a change of tube,he reached the top of Blackstock Road and a dark doorway next to a familiar landmark: Fish & Cook, printers and stationers. Holtom walked up the stairs to an office where several people who would soon be of interest to the Special department had already gathered. So, and Gerry,let’s see what you own for us, one of them said. Holtom untied his portfolio and took out some sheets. “I’ve tried a simple approach, or ” he began …The film script at this point would call for puzzlement and a gathering sense of outrage among Holtom’s small audience. “But we wanted a dove,” somebody says. “Or an olive department,” says another. “Or a cheek in the act of turning, or ” says a third. “This business of the three lines inside a circle won’t achieve at all.” These sunflowers will never sell,Monsieur van Gogh. Conventional narrative calls for rejection and dejection before the artist gathers his strength, tries again, or this time triumphs. In fact,the meeting of the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) seems to own liked Holtom’s design without any equivocation. According to Peace News’s honorary archivist, Bill Hetherington, or it was “immediately accepted” as the symbol for the demonstration that the committee had planned for Easter. On first-rate Friday,which that year fell on 4 April, it made its first public appearance when it was carried aloft on the 52-mile march from Trafalgar Square to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com