A limited edition of 250 of Anderson’s plaques went on sale earlier this month but have now been put into storage as a result of EH’s action.
“They were priced at £50 each but we didn’t sell any because (EH) were straight on to us,” said Dario Illari, owner of the Jealous Gallery in Crouch End, north London. “They sent us a ‘cease and desist’ letter telling us to stop. The idea behind it was that the artist comes from a very small village in Wales where everyone knows everyone’s business, and if someone was having an affair you might as well put a blue plaque up on their door saying so. We wanted to be a bit tongue in cheek, we were not meaning to offend anyone. I think it was just taken in the wrong way, but it is understandable — they were just protecting their territory.”
The letter, from EH’s legal adviser Christopher Brookes, warned the gallery that use of the logo was an infringement of copyright. ‘We ask that you cease using the name and logo on your products and remove the images from your website and anywhere else that you may be using them, immediately’, the letter stated.
A spokeswoman for English Heritage said: “The logos on our blue plaques are a registered trademark, and so we wrote to tell them we would like them to desist. “It is obviously a brand association which is very particular to the organisation. You need permission to use them, interesting though the plaques were.”
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