Jeff Nuttall and the My Own Mag archive
The collection consists of a complete run of My Own Mag - an experimental British magazine.
Jeff Nuttall's life and work
Born in 1933 in Clitheroe, Lancashire, Jeff Nuttall was an artist, poet, horn player, art critic, social historian, novelist, publisher, editor, actor, dramatist and teacher.
Jeff was a central figure in the group of poets and artists of the late fifties and the sixties that included Brian Patten, Roger McGough, Adrian Henri, Michael Horovitz and Tom Pickard. Jeff Nuttall made a wide ranging contribution to contemporary culture, from founding the People Show troupe of performance artists to editing My Own Mag and from his influential role as art teacher to his support for CND.
Jeff Nuttall is known as the author of Bomb Culture (1968), which explores the British counter-cultural scene in the years just before the hippies and psychedelia. He was the author of more than 40 books of poems, play scripts, memoirs, art criticism and social commentary. Nuttall was a regular contributor to International Times in its early days. Nuttall was also a ground-breaking performance artist and later appeared in a number of major commercial films and television series, from Emmerdale to Robin Hood.
In 1975, Jeff Nuttall became chair of the National Poetry Society and was the Poets Conference nominee for Poet Laureate. During the early 1980s he was head of Fine Art at Liverpool Polytechnic, now Liverpool John Moores University.
My Own Mag
My Own Mag was one of the most significant of the British ‘mimeo revolution’ magazines of the early and mid-sixties and possibly the most important avant garde magazine in Britain since Blast.
My Own Mag was a precursor of the underground press and embodied many of the ideas that grew to prominence in the latter part of the decade. It was playful, confrontational, erotic, political, anti-war. It challenged the norm in presentation and readability - surely only William Burroughs would not object to find that one of his texts had been turned into a barely intelligible comic strip?
Sometimes Nuttall would cut a hole right in the middle of an article, something that even the later psychedelic magazines never did. It represented the non-Trocchi side of Sigma. Trocchi himself made only one appearance though many of the people surrounding Sigma were featured. Nuttall’s own Stigma installation at Better Books was featured and Sigma itself was discussed editorially.
Among the many contributors of note are William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, B.S.Johnson, John Latham, Charles Marowitz, Tom McGrath, Barry Miles, Brian Patten, Alexander Trocchi and Jeff Nuttall himself.
The My Own Mag collection
The My Own Mag collection consists of a complete run of My Own Mag (issues one to 17). It also includes a run of George, Son of My Own Mag (issues one to seven). The collection is now available via our online catalogue. For further information please contact the LJMU Archivist.
