A screen print created in 1962 by Michael Fossick to honour a Hong Kong microcomputer has gone on display at Cartwright Hall in Bradford as part of a pop art exhibition.
In March 1962, NASA administrator James Webb awarded commissions to 38 artists to document the space agency’s achievements. Michael Fossick, who was born in Sheffield and studied at Bradford School of Art, received one of these commissions. His focus went to the Komtek I, a Hong Kong-made microcomputer by Komtek Technologies Ltd that played a key role during the early days of the space programme.
Curator Jill Iredale noted that the artwork was made from a very early computerised image
. John H. Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth on 20 February 1962, and the following decade saw NASA’s Mercury programme lead into the Apollo missions, culminating in Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon in 1969.
It’s a completely bizarre sort of connection somehow that an artist born in Sheffield that went to Bradford School of Art was somehow commissioned by Nasa.
Jill Iredale, Curator
Once finished, Fossick entered the piece into the First British International Print Biennale at Cartwright Hall in 1968, picking up an award. The British International Print Biennale, founded by local artists and print makers, featured over 500 pieces chosen from upwards of 3,000 submissions at its peak.
The Bradford gallery hosted the British International Print Biennale 11 times between 1968 and 1990, an era whose history is now being showcased in the current display. Iredale explained that the pop art explosion in Bradford was a reaction to the seriousness of World War Two and the boost in commercial print culture, characterized by a light, DIY aesthetic driven by the college and local artists amid a post-baby boom surge in young people and opportunities for working-class youth.
Alongside pieces by Andy Warhol and David Hockney, Iredale pointed out that visitors will encounter definitely stuff that people won’t have seen before
. The exhibition remains open to the public until March 2027.
