This is tomorrow

This Is Tomorrow was a seminal exhibition of art, architecture, music and graphic design that took place at London´s Whitechapel Gallery in August 1956. At its core was a room given over to the Independent Group, the proto-Pop collective comprised of (at various stages) the theorists Reyner Banham and Lawrence Alloway, photographer Nigel Henderson and the artists Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton, William Turnbull and John McHale. The Independent Group´s room premiered works of Op art alongside film posters, collages, murals, films and a jukebox, and was Britain´s introduction to the phenomenon later named Pop. The spiralbound catalogue for This Is Tomorrow was designed by Edward Wright and published by Lund Humphries; out of print since 1957, it has since become a much sought-after rarity and a classic of graphic design and postwar visual culture. This facsimile edition is published for the Whitechapel´s 2010-11 reconstruction of the 1956 show.