Greenham Common by Peter Kennard, photomontage: silver gelatin print with graphite and gouache on card

Artist and activist Peter Kennard made this photomontage in support of the CND movement protest against the use of RAF Greenham Common as a nuclear weapons base for the United States Air Force (between 1980-1991).

In 1981 a series of protest camps, collectively known as the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, became a central focus of the British peace movement. To promote the Greenham Common protest, Kennard made and then reproduced this photomontage (and others) for posters and publications, which made it a widely disseminated and well-known image (see, for example, the paperback book, ‘No Nuclear Weapons’ authored by Ric Sissons and illustrated by Peter Kennard, CND/Pluto Press, 1981; the poster 'just cruising...', 1983, from the 'GLC Peace Posters Pack' issued by the GLC to anti-war and anti-nuclear groups, schools and local authorities around the UK). Kennard mounted onto card a black and white photograph composed of montaged images of the signage and entrance to RAF Greenham Common. By skewing the angle of the signage, embedding it crookedly within the earth, Kennard suggests its displacement and damage within a post-nuclear wasteland, while he embellishes the image with graphite to imply the dispersal of radioactive dust across the grounds. Kennard frames his apocalyptic image with upper and lower bands of black gouache paint rendered with horizontal gestures that overspill the picture's margins, emphasising the fallout and portending death. Kennard explained that his technique of appropriating found imagery, such as photographs printed in newspapers, is 'about allowing people to think critically about images. Montage brings together things that are usually separate: the missiles, the victims of missiles, the leaders who are ordering missiles'. Exhibited at the Whitechapel Gallery exhibition, ‘Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent’ (2024-25). Purchased from Richard Saltoun Gallery in 2025. Copyright: Peter Kennard.