RARE Pax Britannica: A Hellish Peace BOX SET OF PRINTS 2004

L-13 Rejects and Rarities Dept

A box of 30+ prints and ephemera published by L-13 (when we were known as the aquarium) in 2004 as a fundraiser for Stop The War Coalition and as part of an exhibition of art against war.

100 box sets were made in 3 batches. This set is from the first batch with the Banksy print signed in pencil rather than pen, the folded Ralph Steadman print is borderless, and there is no Danny Mitchell print that only went into the last 30 sets.

Conception, development and printing by Steve Lowe
Cover label designed by Steve Lowe and Ralph Steadman

The contributing artists are:

Banksy, Steve Bell, James Boswell, Alexander Decadenet, Sir Anthony Caro, Jimmy Cauty, Billy Childish, David Gentleman, Richard Hamilton, Clifford Harper, Brian Jones, John Keane, Peter Kennard, Alan Kitching, Jenny Matthews, John Mattson, Antonio Pacciti, Jamie Reid, Martin Rowson, Ralph Steadman, STOT21stC, Gee Vaucher.

All the prints are signed by the artists. Some, like Jamie Reid, Ralph Steadman and Gee Vaucher contributed more than one print. One of Jamie's prints was on screwed up newsprint, and is the first ever "distressed" print we made. The STOT21stC (before they added the planB) print is the first piece of visual artwork outside of CD and record covers the duo ever made, and Jimmy's Stamp of Mass Destruction was contributed shortly after he'd signed an agreement with the Royal Mail promising never to do it again, so we kept his piece off all publicity material. You'll also note that the name on his print is James Caute. We thought that was deliberate for further obfuscation but after we'd printed all 100 and Jimmy came in to sign them, he told us it was a typo.

Most of the prints were A4 or smaller and printed onto a variety of papers and card. They were all made over a period of a couple of months on a desktop printer with a dysfunctional feeding mechanism, so each of the 3,000+ prints were hand fed into it by L-13 Chief Engineer Steve Lowe. It was a painfully slow and laborious process that went on all day and often into the night.

This box set of prints is arguably the most significant edition from our early days that helped shape the very nature of L-13 by introducing Jamie Reid and Jimmy Cauty into our fold.

Our fee for devising and making the set also enabled us to buy a large format printer, enabling us to make prints on demand for Jamie and Jimmy that in turn funded the exhibitions.

the aquarium opened as a gallery in 2003 on the eve of the Iraq War. At that time our business partner was also press secretary for the Stop The War Coalition.  Pax Britannica: A Hellish Peace was an exhibition of artists against war that we hosted as a fundraiser in our very small gallery with an impressive range of artists, all curated by Ruth Boswell who's late husband - the artist James Boswell - had been stationed in Iraq during the second world war and had made many drawings there.

We launched the box set at private view, with a special offer price of approx £100 and incredibly, we only sold a few copies. Then it took a good couple of months to sell the rest at about £200. Someone paid in installments, dropping off £20 in cash at the gallery once in a while. By the time he had finished paying it off Banksy mania had hit and sets were exchanging hands for over £2,000. Now they sell in auction for upwards of £50,000.

This is the only set we have and would only sell it under special circumstances. Click the ENQUIRE NOW button if you'd like to discuss this. 

Also let us know if you have a set to sell. We may be able to help.