"Complex ideas in an apparently simple format": that's Jon Savage's succinct description of the style of artist/graphic designer Jamie Reid, who's died at the age of 76. Through his work with the Sex Pistols, Reid became synonymous with the first wave of British punk, which was arguably as much a visual/aesthetic phenomenon as it was a musical one.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas' piece for the Guardian echoes the statement issued by Reid's gallerist John Marchant and his family, referring to him as an "iconoclast". Of course, the irony is that in defacing a portrait of the Queen (and more), he created work that would in time itself become iconic.
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