He sees parallels between some of the photos on display and the 21st-Century meme. “The relationship between these ways of censoring people from history and the Photoshopped image is very telling, and a warning to us in this day and age. It shows the power of images, and, in a way, part of the story behind this history that we’re drawing out… is exactly that, to look at the power of images in the public space, and what sorts of information they convey.”

Point and shoot

The persuasive sway of the photo appears throughout the exhibition – not only in the room filled with headshots, but also in the vibrant banners and lithographs. It’s often what gave these propaganda images their power, according to Gale. “There’s a combination of abstraction and the figure, usually but not exclusively through photomontage, which is a key development in the late 20s and 30s where the recognisable photographic figure is brought into an abstract composition, and that is both immediately legible and avant-garde – and continues to be extremely influential today in design terms,” he says.