Never mind the relics

A major collection of punk relics will go on show for the first time next month.

It has been built up over 15 years by art dealer Paul Stopler and Andrew Wilson of Art Monthly - and has never been seen by the public.

The collection includes posters, hand-written Sex Pistols lyrics and clothes created by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren.

The anarchic punk movement started in London in 1975 and revelled in - almost defined itself through - shocking wider society.

But perhaps the most shocking exhibit on show at Dave Stewart's gallery The Hospital is one that recalls the sordidly mundane demise of its most iconic couple.

Designer Jamie Reid's famous "Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols" image is still a T-shirt and poster design of choice for disaffected youths across the globe.

The poster on show at The Hospital, however, hung in Room 100 of New York's Chelsea hotel when it was the home of Sex Pistol Sid Vicious and his partner Nancy Spungen.

Look closely at the bottom and top of the poster and you can see smears and speckles of blood, which were apparently left by either Vicious, Spungen or both as they wiped their syringes.

The poster was hanging in room 100 on 12 October 1978 - after the Sex Pistols had split - when the bass player awoke to find Nancy's body, stabbed in the stomach and covered in blood, on the floor.

Vicious, who along with Spungen injected heroin, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

Three months later, while on bail, he died of a heroin overdose. The collectors acquired this poster and much of their other punk artefacts from Anne Beverley, Vicious's mother, who sold some of his possessions.

Whether it was the purposely provocative images with which they emblazoned themselves, or their antiestablishment lyrics, the Sex Pistols captured the attention of rebellious teenagers around the world.