This gallery showcases selected posters from work created in the poster making collectives that operated in Australia (although chiefly in Sydney and Woollongong) during the 1970's and 1980's.

It's not a complete collection, nor is it an attempt to write an academic assessment of the work of the collectives.

Quite simply, this is the work that inspired me to start making my own posters.

As an adolescent in Sydney the late 1970's, these posters were part of the street-scape. Their humour, well directed anger and, above all, their beauty, struck me as a beacon of hope.

There were others out there who thought like me. I wasn't alone.

By putting them on my site I'm not trying to suggest a favorable comparison with my own work. This part of heynick.com is intended solely to show the forgetful and the kiddies what fine things used to happen.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright and authorship of individual posters in this gallery is very difficult to pin down. Often there was a policy in the collectives to avoid crediting an individual, on other occasions records weren't kept. For this reason I haven't put credits on individual posters.

But all posters are copyright and this should be respected.

Broadly speaking the works are © 1970 - 1990 The Tin Sheds Collective, The Earthworks Collective, Lucifoil, Without Authority and Redback Graphics.

I welcome any contact from people who can correct entries or supply more details.

To view a larger image of each poster, click on its image.

To return to the home page click here.