American Jim Marshall’s unseen “peace” photographs, collated and published here for the first time, are a timely document for our world today. Almost sixty years after Gerald Holtom created the peace symbol, this body of work is a beautiful and thoughtful reflection from one of the most celebrated photographers of the twentieth century.
Marshall saw himself as an anthropologist and a journalist, visually recording the changing times and explosion of creativity and celebrity in the 1960s. He loved street photography, and in between official assignments, started documenting the CND peace symbol and peace rallies as a personal project. He tabled these images on an index card in his archives scrawled with a peace sign, where they have remained until now.
The CND symbol was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The symbol spread from the UK to the anti-war campaign in the US. Marshall’s photographs were taken mainly between 1961 and 1968 across America and chart the progression of the CND symbol from a “Ban the Bomb”-specific protest, to an internationally recognized symbol of peace. He captured street graffiti in the New York subway, buttons pinned to hippies and students, and West Coast peace rallies held by a generation who believed, for a brief moment, they could make a difference.
Peace, published by Reel Art Press, shows how the emblem came to represent so much more than just a badge for the CND. The photographs – taken mainly between 1961 and 1968 – chart its progression from a Ban the Bomb-specific protest to the internationally recognized symbol of peace. With a fascinating introduction by Peter Doggett, an afterword by Joan Baez, and a foreword by graphic street artist Shepard Fairey – creator of the iconic Hope poster for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and the recent We The People campaign, who will be hosting an accompanying exhibition at his gallery in Los Angeles later this year – this captivating collection of previously unseen photographs is a wonderful photo essay from the 1960s. As Amelia Davis, who worked with Marshall for years and is in charge of his archive writes, “He was brilliant at capturing a moment in time. The Peace project is a testament to his vision and his technical genius; and also a vivid evocation of a symbol, and a sensibility, that survived the turmoil of a remarkable decade.”
Jim Marshall, Peace
Published by Reel Art Press
£19.95 / $29.95
