Original protest poster, Biston Betularia Novus, by Peter Fish, published by flyingleaps (2016). Signed, numbered and dated on the reverse (from an edition of 300).

Established in 2016, the flyingleaps project works with established and emerging artists to “introduce fresh voices into the ‘visual conversations’ that echo round our cities”. This is achieved by exhibiting artists’ work on street poster sites to make “unexpected and thought-provoking contributions to the urban spectacle”.

Over the years we (at C20th Posters) have been delighted to spot these typically temporary displays in London and elsewhere and have collected several examples as a record of the urban poster landscape in the 21^st Century. All the examples offered for sale via C20th Posters have been supplied directly by flyingleaps.

“The idea behind Fish’s Biston Betularia Novus (2016) is Darwin’s Moth, the paler version of which ceded way to the sooty, mottled sort as natural selection chimed with 19th century industrial grime. In its new incarnation Fish’s moth has taken on partial markings of consumer culture all the better to blend, belong, to survive in an increasingly neo-liberal cityscape”.