Photographic exhibition posters are a fascinating and all too ephemeral part of photographic history. They are part of photography’s narrative and form a visual history of the public exhibiting of photography. At the new London Institute Research Centre for Photography and the Archive, based at the London College of Communication, the Poster Project aims to collect and preserve a substantial collection of these fragile objects. Already in the collection is an important donation of posters promoting exhibitions by Martin Parr since the early Seventies, including the poster for the first showing of Home Sweet Home at the Impressions Gallery York in the summer of 1974. Designed by Andrew Sproxton with Letraset, and showing one of Parr’s plastic-framed black and white photographs of English suburbia, it is a testament to the ‘hand-made’ production which emerged from small regional photo galleries at the beginning of the independent photography movement.

As well as Parr’s gift to the collection, the Impressions Gallery donation, from its archives, is also significant. Included in this set of objects is the poster which advertised the Arts Council touring exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit Photography, designed by Judy Cramond and illustrated by a 1928 photograph by Max Burchartz. Battered and frayed, but surviving the vicissitudes of personal collections, are the large-scale posters for the Diane Arbus exhibition (shown at the Hayward Gallery in 1974) and the Barbican’s 1989 Through the Looking Glass: Photography in Britain 1945-1989, designed by Arefin and Arefin for the exhibition curated by Gerry Badger and John Benton Harris. The poster for Mysterious Coincidences: New British Colour Photography, was designed by Michael Farish, printed by Jackson Wilson in Leeds and typeset at the Central School of Art and Design. Illustrated by a photograph from Keith Arnatt’s 1987 series Miss Grace’s Lane, the exhibition explored work by some of the central figures in Eighties colour photography, including Martin Parr, Boyd Webb, Paul Graham and Ron O’Donnell.

Curated by Alexandra Noble and Susan Beardmore, for the Photographers’ Gallery, the show was an acknowledgement of the importance of new colour documentary in the rapidly changing UK photographic arena. Likewise, the modest poster for Anna Fox’s Basingstoke 85/86 show, which opened at F.stop Photography, Bath, in March 1987, shows the arrival of the second generation of British colour documentarists (including Fox, Paul Reas, Paul Seawright and Nick Waplington) on the UK gallery scene.

The housing of the collection at LCC is particularly apt, as the college has produced numerous significant poster designers. For many years, designer Tom Eckersley was Head of Graphics. His innovative modern design for clients who included The Post Office, Shell and the Imperial War Museum is now preserved as part of the College’s archive. The Poster Collection at the Photography and the Archive Research Centre contains around 100 works and is growing. We are searching for posters to add to the collection and will be appealing directly to photographers, museums and galleries for donations, which will be the catalyst for new, commissioned research. A selection of the collected works will be shown at LCC in autumn 2004.

For more information on the collection and to discuss donations, contact Val Williams, Director, Research Centre for Photography and the Archive, London College of Communication, Elephant and Castle, London SE1