How Jamie Reid’s iconoclastic album covers for the Sex Pistols became a symbol of British punk
The IndependentHere at Humber Street Gallery on Hull’s historic waterfront, Jamie Reid is busy assembling his biggest ever one-man show. Her Majesty has never looked quite the same since Reid put a safety pin through her top lip to promote the Pistols’ “God Save the Queen”. open image in gallery A board of Reid's slogans and artworks at his exhibition “I’m inevitably going to be associated with the Pistols and punk,” he tells me. Reid uses one word to describe it: “Bleak.” Thankfully, he was rescued from this rural purgatory by a telegram from his old art school pal Malcolm McLaren, reading: “Would you be interested in working with this band I’ve got called the Sex Pistols?” open image in gallery Johnny Rotten heading up the Sex Pistols in their heyday Reid needed no persuading. “They were all singing ‘God Save the Queen’!” That record, and Reid’s artwork, divided the country like no record before or since.
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Jamie Reid the artist who designed covers for Sex Pistols’ albums dies
The Independent
Jamie Reid, artist who defined the punk aesthetic with Sex Pistols record covers, dies at 76
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