International Times

The International Times, or IT, was London’s most influential underground newspaper. It launched in 1966 at the Roundhouse with an all-night event featuring Pink Floyd and Soft Machine and quickly became a hub for countercultural ideas. The paper published poetry, experimental art, political writing, and early music journalism, with contributors ranging from Allen Ginsberg and Germaine Greer to William Burroughs and DJ John Peel. Its founding editors included John “Hoppy” Hopkins, Barry Miles, and Tom McGrath, and it received financial support from Paul McCartney. The paper’s logo, a black-and-white image of silent film star Theda Bara, was chosen by mistake; the founders had intended to use Clara Bow, but went with Bara after a mix-up. Theda Bara, known for her femme fatale roles in the 1910s, came to embody the paper’s subversive spirit and stuck as its visual identity. IT played a key role in documenting and shaping the underground press movement in the UK and beyond. Today, its full archive is available online, offering access to hundreds of issues and a window into the social, political, and artistic shifts from the late 1960s to the 90s.

The cover of the August 9–22, 1968 issue features striking computer artworks from Cybernetic Serendipity by Charles Csuri, often called the Father of Digital Art and Computer Animation, alongside pieces by Princeton’s Sam Schmitt. Cybernetic Serendipity was a groundbreaking 1968 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, curated by Jasia Reichardt, that presented groundbreaking explorations of computer-generated art. Inside, the issue captures the vibrant pulse of the late 1960s counterculture, shifting from Stephen Ralstan’s reflections on South Africa a decade after Sharpeville to Ray Durgnat’s incisive thoughts on stepping away from underground culture. Themes of mysticism emerge in meditations on Meher Baba and explorations of Rasputin’s enduring myth, while kinetic art finds its place through a nod to Takis. Music threads through the pages, featuring sounds from Spooky Tooth and John Peel’s Perfumed Garden, all the way to a lively ad for Middle Earth’s Magical Mystery Tour with Traffic and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The issue closes by linking the classical with the contemporary through a succinct review of Matisse at the Hayward, capturing the eclectic spirit that defines International Times.