Jamie Reid

Jamie Macgregor Reid was born in London on 16 January 1947 and grew up in Croydon.{{Cite news |last=Murphy |first=Brian |date=11 August 2023 |title=Jamie Reid, artist for Sex Pistols who defined punk style, dies at 76 |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/08/11/jamie-reid-punk-sex-pistols-dies/ |access-date=13 August 2023}} He was educated at John Ruskin Grammar School. In 1962, he began to study at Wimbledon Art School, then enrolled in Croydon Art School in 1964.{{cite web|url=http://www.artnet.com/artists/jamie-reid/ |title=Jamie Reid (British, born 1947) |access-date=7 December 2019|website=artnet.com}} With Malcolm McLaren, he took part in a sit-in at Croydon Art School.{{Cite news |date=9 August 2023|title=Jamie Reid: Punk artist behind Sex Pistols record covers dies at 76 |language=en-GB |publisher=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66450958 |access-date=9 August 2023}}

Reid's work often featured letters cut from newspaper headlines in the style of a ransom note, particularly in the UK; he created the ransom-note style while he was designing for Suburban Press, a radical political magazine he founded in 1970.{{cite web |last1=Seymour |first1=Corey |title=Jamie Reid, Whose Artwork Defined Punk, Protest, and the Sex Pistols, Has Died at 76 |url=https://www.vogue.com/article/jamie-reid-sex-pistols-artist-obituary |website=Vogue |date=9 August 2023 |access-date=15 August 2023}}{{cite web |last1=Murray |first1=Robin |title=Jamie Reid – Sex Pistols Designer, Aesthetic Provocateur – Has Died |url=https://www.clashmusic.com/news/jamie-reid-sex-pistols-designer-aesthetic-provocateur-has-died/ |website=Clashmusic |date=9 August 2023 |access-date=15 August 2023}} His best known works include the Sex Pistols album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, and the singles "Anarchy in the U.K.", "God Save the Queen" (based on a Cecil Beaton photograph of Queen Elizabeth II, with an added safety pin through her nose and swastikas in her eyes, described by Sean O'Hagan of The Observer as "the single most iconic image of the punk era"),Heard, Chris (2004) "[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/entertainment/3720788.stm Art and style of punk's shocking past]", BBC, 7 October 2004. Retrieved 2 February 2010O'Hagan, Sean (2007) "[https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/jun/03/art1 Art anarchy in the UK]", The Observer, 3 June 2007. Retrieved 2 February 2010Donald, Ann (1998) "The angry revolt into style; Punk's explosion still reverberates in the world of graphic design. Ann Donald catches the echoes", Glasgow Herald, 9 February 1998. "Pretty Vacant", and "Holidays in the Sun".Ross, Peter (2001) "[https://web.archive.org/web/20121104021628/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/smgpubs/access/69294028.html?dids=69294028:69294028&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Mar+04,+2001&author=Words:+Peter+Ross+Photograph:+Gillian+Whisker&pub=Sunday+Herald&desc=Toxteth+shock&pqatl=google Toxteth Shock]", Sunday Herald, 4 March 2001. Retrieved 2 February 2010 The image from "God Save the Queen" was named "the greatest record cover of all time" by Q magazine in 2011 and later became part of the collection in the National Portrait Gallery.{{cite web |title=Queen Elizabeth II ('God Save the Queen') |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw288622/Queen-Elizabeth-II-God-Save-the-Queen |website=www.npg.org.uk |publisher=National Portrait Gallery |access-date=13 August 2023 |language=en}}

Reid produced a series of screen prints in 1997, the twentieth anniversary of the birth of punk rock. Ten years later, on the thirtieth anniversary of the release of "God Save the Queen", Reid produced a new print entitled "Never Trust a Punk", based on his original design which was exhibited at London Art Fair in the Islington area of the city.{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3662857/Market-news-Sothebys-Jamie-Reid-Rachel-Howard-and-more....html |title=Market news: Sotheby's, Jamie Reid, Rachel Howard and more... |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=30 January 2007 |access-date=12 August 2014}} He also produced artwork for the world music fusion band Afro Celt Sound System.{{cite web|last1=Clarke|first1=Naomi|title=Jamie Reid the artist who designed covers for Sex Pistols' albums dies |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/sex-pistols-elizabeth-ii-born-british-croydon-b1099693.html|website=Evening Standard|date=10 August 2023}}

Reid's exhibitions included Peace is Tough at The Arches in Glasgow, and at the Microzine Gallery in Liverpool, where he lived."Pistols cover man Reid continues to pierce consciousness", Liverpool Daily Post, 19 December 2005 From 2004, he exhibited and published prints with the Aquarium Gallery, where a career retrospective, May Day, May Day, was held in May 2007."[https://www.nme.com/news/sex-pistols/27175 Sex Pistols artist announces exhibition]", NME, 20 March 2007. Retrieved 2 February 2010 Starting in 2004, he exhibited and published work at Steve Lowe's new project space the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop in Clerkenwell, London.{{cite web |title=Jamie Reid – Artist, iconoclast, anarchist, punk, hippie, shit-stirring rebel and romantic. |url=https://l-13.org/projects/jamie-reid/ |website=L-13 Light Industrial Workshop |access-date=15 August 2023 |quote=Jamie Reid has been working with L-13 since 2004, when he contributed to the exhibition Pax Britannica Art: Against War.}}

In 2009, following allegations Damien Hirst was to sue a student for copyright infringement, Reid called him a "hypocritical and greedy art bully" and, in collaboration with Jimmy Cauty, produced his For the Love of Disruptive Strategies and Utopian Visions in Contemporary Art and Culture image as a pastiche, replacing the God Save The Queen with God Save Damien Hirst.{{Cite news|url=http://www.theweek.co.uk/people/41201/artists-declare-war-%E2%80%98bully%E2%80%99-damien-hirst|title=Artists declare war on 'bully' Damien Hirst|newspaper=The Week UK|access-date=15 January 2017|archive-date=16 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116194312/http://www.theweek.co.uk/people/41201/artists-declare-war-%E2%80%98bully%E2%80%99-damien-hirst|url-status=dead}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/4609976/Artists-flout-copyright-law-to-attack-Damien-Hirst.html|title=Artists flout copyright law to attack Damien Hirst|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=15 January 2017}}

In October 2010, U.S. activist David Jacobs, founder of the early 1970s Situationist group Point-Blank!, challenged claims that Reid created the "Nowhere Buses" graphic which appeared on the sleeve to the Sex Pistols' 1977 single "Pretty Vacant" and has subsequently been used many times for limited edition prints. Jacobs said he created the design, which first appeared in a pamphlet as part of a protest about mass transit in San Francisco in 1973.{{cite web|url=http://www.paulgormanis.com/?p=4038 |title=Point-Blank! challenges Jamie Reid: 'We created the Nowhere buses' « Paul Gorman is… |publisher=Paulgormanis.com |access-date=12 August 2014}}

Reid was also involved in direct action campaigns on issues including the poll tax, Clause 28, and the Criminal Justice Bill.

His former partner was actress Margi Clarke, with whom he had a daughter.{{cite web | title=Jamie Reid, artist whose work for the Sex Pistols resulted in some of pop music's most enduring images – obituary | website=The Daily Telegraph | date=9 August 2023 | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2023/08/09/jamie-reid-artist-sex-pistols-god-save-the-queen-obituary/ | access-date=9 August 2023}}

Reid's great-uncle was George Watson MacGregor Reid, a modern Druid who established and led the Church of the Universal Bond.{{cite web |url=http://www.jamiereid.org/ |title=Jamie Reid • jamiereid.org |website=www.jamiereid.org |access-date=8 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120703093614/http://www.jamiereid.org/ |archive-date=3 July 2012 |url-status=dead}} Reid was an honorary bard in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids{{cite web | url=https://druidry.org/people/jamie-reid | title=Jamie Reid: Honorary Bard | access-date=18 May 2023}} and worked with Philip Carr-Gomm, the order's former Chosen Chief, to produce a book on the eight festivals of the Druidic calendar.{{cite web | url=https://confidentials.com/liverpool/sex-pistols-design-legend-Jamie-Reid-book-launch-Eight-fold-Year-News-From-Nowhere | title=Sex Pistols design legend reveals his inner druid | access-date=18 May 2023}}

Reid died on 8 August 2023, at the age of 76, at home in Liverpool.{{cite news |last1=Sweeting |first1=Adam |title=Jamie Reid obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/aug/13/jamie-reid-obituary-sex-pistols-design |access-date=13 August 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=13 August 2023}}{{cite news |last1=Robb |first1=John |title=Jamie Reid dies at 76 |url=https://louderthanwar.com/jamie-reid-dies-at-76/ |access-date=9 August 2023 |publisher=Louder Than War |date=9 August 2023}}

{{Reflist}}

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• {{Cite book |last1=Ferrell |first1=Jeff |title=Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy |date=2002 |language=en |isbn=978-1-4039-6033-7 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |df=mdy-all }}
• {{Cite book |last1=Mulholland |first1=Neil |title=The Cultural Devolution: Art in Britain in the Late Twentieth Century |date=2017-10-23 |language=en |isbn=978-1-351-77262-4 |publisher=Routledge |df=mdy-all }}

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• [http://www.johnmarchantgallery.com John Marchant Gallery]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20171210141958/http://www.jamiereid.org/about/ Official site]
• {{discogs artist|Jamie Reid}}
• [http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/keep-warm-this-winter-make-trouble/ Interview with Reid at 3:AM Magazine]

{{Sex Pistols}}

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Category:1947 births

Category:2023 deaths

Category:Alumni of Croydon College

Category:Artists from London

Category:English album-cover and concert-poster artists

Category:English anarchists

Category:English contemporary artists

Category:English graphic designers

Category:People educated at John Ruskin Grammar School

Category:Punk people

Category:Sex Pistols