Anti-nuclear protest art that will stop you in your tracks

  • Text by Alex King
  • Photography by CND
Never again — On the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima attack, we collect powerful artwork that forces us to rethink living under the shadow of nuclear weapons.

It’s 70 years since the American atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima on August 6 1945. Followed shortly after by the attack on Nagasaki on August 9, over 129,000 people are believed to have died in what remains the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare.

The devastation of two Japanese cities shocked people around the globe, but the threat only grew as the US and Soviet Union stockpiled nuclear missiles during the Cold War, and the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea developed their own bombs.

Realising that nobody was safe from nuclear destruction helped spark the now-iconic global peace movement. Over the years, it has produced some pretty incredible imagery. Perhaps because, hey, there’s no better motivation for putting pen to paper than trying to stop the annihilation of the human race.

Here are some of the most powerful pieces from seven decades of the anti-nuclear movement.

Peter Kennard

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Ralph Steadman

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Keith HaringKeith Haring radiantchrist_7

Frederic Henri Kay for CND

Frederic Henri Kay for CND

Banksy

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Peter Kennardkennard_protect_survive_460

Kevin Ford’s alternative music video for Radiohead’s ‘4 Minute Warning’, inspired by Eric Schlosser’s  Command and Control

Weisser, Tarot Press

Weisser, Tarot Press

Hiroshima survivor Hiroharu Konohiroshima museum

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Peter Kennardpeterkennard

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

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Yusaku Kamekuraf8cca55bdd5014300ca91e5e830ab52aUnknown63d6bdfba7d196c8df4b6ef3563788d8

Brian Barnese0e6df6efaced0879d573165f0611f60

British designer Gerald Holtom’s original sketches for the iconic CND logoHoltom original sketch 1 Holtom original sketch 2

If you feel like there’s no place for nuclear weapons, one thing you can do is join the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

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