Classic Cold War Visions

(with thanks to Matthew Badham): The Guardian reports on an upcoming exhibition at London's V&A Museum, featuring Sputniks, space suits, an early coupe form of the Trabant and a full-scale reconstruction of a futuristic inflatable building.

Cold War Modern, which starts in September, will also feature classic cold war images including Roman Cieslewicz's Superman 68, featuring rival US and Russian versions of the comic-book hero.

The show aims to chart postwar design as it developed along parallel lines on both sides of the iron curtain - in an atmosphere of frantic competition, but also under the shadow, for much of the period, of the fear of nuclear war.

Polish artist Roman Cieslewicz, who died in 1996, specialized in poster and display designing and worked as a book and magazine designer, for titles such as Vogue and Elle. He was also the artistic creator of Opus International and Kitsch.

• Cold War Modern: Design 1945-70 is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, from September 25.

• The V&A also hosts the National Art Library, and its Comics Collection forms part of the Library's Special Collections, to which access is restricted. For more information, see Registering to use the National Art Library. An appointment is necessary for access to the Krazy Kat Arkive at the Archive of Art and Design. 2000AD fans may be interested to know, however, that an electronic version of the catalogue for an exhibition held in 2001 of original comic book artwork from the comic is available online.