The Clash Sniffin Glue

SHEILA ROCK (B. 1952)
The Clash Sniffin Glue, 1977
Signed in ink (reverse); numbered 2/50 photograph; unframed & matted
image: 16 × 20 in (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
This is number 2 from an edition of 50

This Sheila Rock photograph of The Clash, made up by Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Joe Strummer, was shot in 1977 for Sniffin' Glue, the mimeographed London fanzine that Mark Perry started in July 1976 and that effectively wrote the first draft of British punk's own history. The band stands tightly against wall papered with tabloid headlines, most prominently a mocking nod to the magazine's name in "PARENTS WARNED OVER GLUE SNIFFING," highlighting the moral panic that punk was accused of triggering and the media hysteria it was simultaneously fueling. The band's clothes carry the DIY graphic language the scene had defined by mid-1977: paint-splattered shirts, hand-lettered slogans, ties worn as anti-formal insignia rather than dress code.

Rock was one of the few photographers granted the kind of proximity to the London punk scene that produced this frame — working across Sounds, NME, The Face, and the fanzine circuit through the late 1970s, she built a body of work that has since become the visual record for the period.