Paddington Printshop 1975 “Paddington Printshop Opens May 1st 75” Original Multi-Coloured Poster

A rare example of the poster produced by John Phillips for the opening of the Paddington Printshop at the Factory in Chippenham Mews on May 1st 1975. Striking multi-coloured screen-printing featuring a joker and an invitation to the Marylands Community Association to produce their posters and leaflets at the Paddington Printshop. 

John Phillips opened the Paddington Printshop in an old taxi-meter factory in Chippenham Mews in 1974, and began making event and campaign posters for everyone “from the vicar to the anarchist”, as Phillips would later describe it. All manner of causes were promoted, from international appeals such as the anti-apartheid movement to local disputes including squatters’ rights, housing associations, hostile developers, derelict land and greedy landlords. Customers were charged at different rates, squatters just covered the cost of the materials, whilst groups receiving grants would pay slightly more. Among their (now) famous customers include Joe Strummer, who would print posters for his then band, the 101ers (named after the house number of the squat he was living in at the time around the corner), Piers Corbyn (who was in the International Marxist Group with Tariq Ali and who would organise the local Elgin Road squats) and the Sex Pistols (who had their first poster printed there, but no copy was archived!). Another regular in the printshop was the writer, poet and activist Heathcote Williams who helped create the Independent Republic of Frestonia, which attempted to secede from the U.K. Phillips printed posters for Frestonia (named after Freston Road), also squatter benefits, the proposed criminal trespass law (which would have made squatting a criminal rather than a civil offence) and a squatting advisory service which acted as an unofficial underground estate agency of empty properties. The Printshop formally closed in 1991 when Phillips transferred the assets to a new charitable organisation, the London Print Studio.

Approx. 740x555mm., small crease to upper left corner and old drawing pin holes to the corners, though overall in excellent condition. A rare survivor, and one of the few outside museum ownership. One of two examples I have recently discovered.