Yale Center for British Art

Creator:
Nigel Henderson, 1917–1985, British
Title:
Untitled
Date:
1976
Materials & Techniques:
Collage and photogram on board
Dimensions:
Sheet: 19 11/16 × 15 3/4 inches (50 × 40 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Purchased with funds from the Bequest of Daniel S. Kalk and the Friends of British Art Fund
Copyright Status:
© Nigel Henderson Estate / Tate
Accession Number:
B2021.7.9
Gallery Label:
Nigel Henderson's collages document working-class culture in mid-twentieth-century Britain. An avid collector of popular ephemera, the artist brings together elements of Victorian and Second World War paraphernalia with saucy pin-ups, optical swirls, and snippets from contemporary newspapers. Henderson began producing collages in the 1950s, when technological advances in mass printing and television led to a proliferation of popular media. Known for his photography, he often overlaid the fragments of pop imagery with his own photograms. These abstract, silhouetted shapes, evident in the two collages from the 1970s, were made by placing everyday objects such as string onto a photosensitive surface and exposing it to light. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2022