Gerald Holtom

Gerald Herbert Holtom (20 January 1914 – 18 September 1985 ) was an English artist and designer. A graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, in 1958 he designed the Nuclear Disarmament (ND) logo, which was adopted the same year by the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and later became an international peace symbol.

ND symbol

Educated at Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk, Holtom was a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London. He had been a conscientious objector during World War II.

On 21 February 1958 he designed the nuclear disarmament logo for the first Aldermaston March, organised by the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War (DAC) in Easter 1958 (4–7 April).

There are differing accounts of how the design was conceived. According to CND, Holtom had been invited by the DAC to design artwork for the Aldermaston March. He showed his preliminary sketches to a DAC meeting in February 1958 at the Peace News offices in North London. According to Christopher Driver, who wrote about CND in a 1964 book, The Disarmers, Holtom brought the design, unsolicited, to the chairperson of his local anti-nuclear group in Twickenham and alternative versions were shown at the inaugural meeting of the London CND.

Trademark registration of the logo was never carried out, and since the 1960s the logo has become known to, and used by, the public as a general-purpose peace symbol.

In addition to this primary genesis, Holtom additionally cited as inspiration Goya's Peasant Before the Firing Squad:

The reference is to Goya's The Third of May 1808 (1814), although the peasant shown in this painting has his arms stretched upwards, not downwards.

Boat design

Holtom was also a boat designer; he designed a self-stabilising hydrofoil boat, the Foiler (21 feet), which started production in 1977.

Personal life

Holtom had six children, four with his first wife, and two with his second wife.