Catalogue Number
Temp.2024.11.12
Object Name
Postcard
People
Bell, Steve; Thatcher, Margaret
Date
1980s
Description
Postcard design named "Steve Bell's Old Masters: No.1 - After Landscape with Hagar and the Angel by Claude Lorrain". Adapting the original, the angel speaks to a caricatured Margaret Thatcher in the foreground. The lake and river in the background is filled with signs such as "Enterprise Zone", "Fall Out Shelters", "Space Invader Works". On the back there is a Leeds Postcards logo. Leeds Postcards was founded in 1979, with the intention of using postcards âas a political tool and agent for changeâ. They quickly became well-known, producing some iconic work with activist groups such as the Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (MCANW) and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) branches across the country, and artists including Peter Kennard and Steve Bell. They are still publishing postcards today. Throughout the 1980s, Leeds Postcards published a number of cards satirising the threat of nuclear war, and celebrating the movement against the bomb.
Multimedia
