Time for Magic

Time for Magic offers an entrancing overview of Jamie Reid’s incredible art, structured around the eight seasonal festivals of the Wheel of the Year (the equinoxes and solstices plus Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain). Jamie observed these festivals, holding rituals at his allotment in Liverpool, and focused on this theme in his later paintings. This book features key Wheel of the Year artworks as well as famous earlier pieces, including the pre-punk, Situationist-inspired agit-prop and the work he produced for the Sex Pistols. Curator Stephen Ellcock has selected the art and in his own inimitable creative style arranged it into season-themed chapters, as well as finding images of Druidic ceremonies held by Jamie’s great-uncle, Chief Druid George Watson MacGregor Reid.

Stephen Ellcock in conversation with John Marchant introduces Jamie’s life, legacy and love of making trouble; John Marchant provides captions giving deep insight in Jamie’s work; and Philip Carr-Gomm writes about the Wheel of the Year and how it can help us find a new way of being in this era of climate crisis.

The message of Time for Magic is that the re-enchantment of the world is possible. This book is both an antidote to nihilism and a call to action: a visual manifesto for a better world.