Anti-nuclear Missile Demonstration at Greenham Common
- Artist: Chris Steele-Perkins
- Date: 1980–9
- Medium: Photograph, dye destruction on paper
- Dimensions: image: 254 x 382 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is “Antinuclear Missile Demonstration at Greenham Common” by Chris Steele‑Perkins. The image comes from his 1980–9 series “The Pleasure Principle,” which captures everyday and political scenes in Britain’s 1980s. Here we see a military missile test staged on Greenham Common, a site used for launch and missile trials in Surrey. The photograph is printed using dye destruction, a process that allows vivid color reproduction and gives the scene a crisp, almost photographic‑film quality. The image shows the stark contrast between the organized military display and the surrounding countryside, hinting at Britain’s Cold War mindset while still grounded in everyday landscapes. This single frame fits within Steele‑Perkins’ broader inquiry into British public rituals of happiness, where leisure and state power often collide. The print thus offers both a document of 1980s technology and an aesthetic snapshot of that era’s cultural rhythms.
See it in person
Anti-nuclear Missile Demonstration at Greenham Common is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
