Catalogue Number
NMLH.2021.151.6
Object Name
Poster
Title
Portfolio Collection - Ken Sprague Print "It's a big dollar earner."
People
Ken Sprague
Events
Porton Down experiments
Date
1969
Description
Large a2 silk screen-printed poster. White background, with black and brown illustrations. Very large figure of a worker wearing a large gas mask, protective equipment and gloves. They are holding a brown rectangle over their hand, which is presumably an object for some kind of experimentation. Underneath this figure there is a very large brown rat. The use of rats throughout this portfolio comment on the animal testing which took place, but could be a metaphor for the human experiments and testing as lab rat can also refer to a person or thing used as a subject for experiment; from 1945 to 1989, Porton exposed more than 3,400 human guinea pigs to nerve gas. Next to this brown rectangle it says in black text, "It's a big dollar earner." This is commenting on the main justification for the Porton down experiments and their consequential health impacts on people, animals and the environment; money. See NMLH.2022.151 for further descriptive context about Sprague and Porton Down.
