Selling the ‘Daily Worker’ outside Projectile Engineering Works
- Artist: Clive Branson
- Date: 1937
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 406 × 507 × 20 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the "Selling the Daily Worker outside Projectile Engineering Works" by Clive Branson. Painted in 1937, this oil on canvas brings Battersea’s munitions yard to life with a street scene that’s part protest, part snapshot of everyday resistance. In the foreground, a man and a woman – likely Branson and his wife – push out a sign that reads “For Unity” while offering copies of the Communist newspaper, the Daily Worker. The red glow of the factory furnace pours over them, making the industrial backdrop feel almost alive. Branson, a committed member of the Communist Party since 1932, used a naïve, almost Pitmen‑Painters style to make the message accessible to the working class, rejecting the polished academic tradition he’d learned at the Slade. The painting was created during the Spanish Civil War, a period when the left was galvanised across Europe. Branson would later fight with the International Brigade, his art echoing his commitment to a united front against fascism.
See it in person
Selling the ‘Daily Worker’ outside Projectile Engineering Works 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.
