Few areas of Glasgow have been photographed as much as the Gorbals. From Bert Hardy in the 1940s and Oscar Marzaroli in the 1960s through to Steven Berkoff during the same era, each photographer has marked the changes of the once notorious area from tenement slum to high rise life and beyond. A new book of images from the archive of the late Peter Christopherson forms something of a missing link, drawing as it does from the mid to late 1970s, when Christopherson was commissioned by the Citizens Theatre to provide images for posters pasted across the city.
Published in a lavish hardback by Timeless editions, the French based imprint that specialises in underground art, GORBALS showcases a vast array of Christopherson’s images over more than 200 pages. The book also features interviews with two of the Citizens Theatre’s former artistic directors, Giles Havergal and Philip Prowse by writer Nick Soulsby that puts the photographs in context. With Prowse the design genius who gave the Citz its visual identity, it was he who brought Christopherson into the fold. The result is an overdue showcase of a neglected area of Christopherson’s work.
Best known to friends as Sleazy, Christopherson was one of the co-founders of industrial noise provocateurs, Throbbing Gristle, once named by the late Conservative MP Nicholas Fairbairn as ‘wreckers of civilisation’. Sleazy was also a co-founder of Psychic TV with fellow ex Throbbing Gristle member Genesis P-Orridge, before going on to form Coil with his late partner, John Balance.
Before any of that, Christopherson was a partner in Hipgnosis, the design company responsible for album covers by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel and many more. Christopherson also designed the logo of fashion label, BOY.
Around the same time as he took the images in GORBALS, Christopherson shot the first promotional images of the Sex Pistols, and provided design work for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s King’s Road boutique, SEX. The publication of GORBALS and subsequent volumes planned by Timeless joins the dots between several different strands of Christopherson’s counter cultural activity.
“It's really exciting,” says Tim Lewis, aka Thighpaulsandra, a long time associate of Christopherson, who played in Coil, and holds his friend’s photographic archive. “Sleazy showed me some of these images when he was still alive, and I was just blown away. When he moved to Thailand in 2005 he had a huge archive but nowhere to store it. I lived in a farm and had all this storage space, so he left it all with me. There were thousands and thousands of negatives of his photography work, and some of the images were stunning, and so raw. You can see it in the Gorbals images, how the place looked, and the clothes people wore. Then after he died I knew we had to do something with them.”
A connection with Xavier Laradji from Timeless led to the 2014 publication of Peter Christopherson Photography, which featured images from across Christopherson’s archive. A book of Coil related images followed. GORBALS forms the first of several volumes that focus on specific aspects of Christopherson’s practice.
“The very first picture of the Gorbals by Sleazy I saw was when we worked together on an article to illustrate an article by Dennis Cooper,” Laradji says. “We did a signed edition of it. then we spoke about doing a book, but he was very busy with his music before he died, so it is thanks to Tim and to our German friend Claus Laufenburg, who wrote the introduction to the book ,that we can release those photos.”
A launch event in Glasgow on Thursday will feature a performance by Thighpaulsandra as well as a screening of A Way to Die: The Short Films of Coil, by Laradji.
“These photographs are a look back in time,” says Laradji, “I am very curious to see how the Gorbals looks nowadays.”
The next volume in the Christopherson series will include collaborations with designer John Harwood on posters for individual Citizens Theatre productions. Through it all, it is Christopherson’s artistry that stands out.
“On tour with Coil, we would all take pictures with these little digital cameras that had come out,” Lewis remembers. “Mine and the rest of the band, they'd all look like snapshots, but all of Sleazy's pictures would look like art. He just had an eye for things. He knew how to frame a scene, and make it look great.”
Christopherson’s last known Glasgow visit came in 2009 when a reactivated Throbbing Gristle played Tramway, the Southside venue not far from where the photographs in GORBALS were taken. Whether he revisited what was left of the locations captured in the book isn’t known. All his work after 2005 remains in Thailand. What we are left with in GORBALS is a fascinating study of a lost world by a major artist.
“He’s almost an undiscovered talent,” says Lewis. “Obviously, his work with Hipgnosis was greatly appreciated, but I don’t think anybody really knew what he did outside of that. These photographs, I think, are the cream of what he did, and hopefully the book is a gateway to enlightenment.”
GORBALS by Peter Christopherson is published by Timeless editions. Magnetic North - An Evening for Peter Christopherson, EXIT, 96 Maxwell Street, Glasgow, Thursday 15 October, 7pm.
The Herald, October 15th 2026
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