Linder Sterling

Linder (born 1954 in Liverpool) is a British artist and musician.

Linder is the daughter of Jean and Thomas Mulvey. She spent her adolescence and most of her adult life in Manchester, and was educated at Upholland Grammar School. After completing a foundation course, she studied Graphic Design at Manchester Polytechnic from 1974 to 1977. From 1976 onwards, Linder was a key figure within Manchester punk and post punk circles; one of her early photomontages was featured on the cover of the Buzzcocks 'Orgasm Addict' single, while other photomontages were published in 'The Secret Public' magazine alongside those of Jon Savage. Linder designed the cover for Magazine's 'Real Life' album, using the mono print technique. Linder met Morrissey in 1976 and they have been close friends ever since. Linder formed her own band, Ludus, in 1978, they disbanded in 1983.

A radical feminist and a well-known figure of the Manchester punk and post-punk scene, Linder is known for her montages, which often combined images taken from pornographic magazines with images from women's fashion and domestic magazines, particularly those of domestic appliances, making a point about the cultural expectations of women and the treatment of female body as a commodity. Many of her works were published in the punk collage fanzine Secret Public, which she co-founded with Jon Savage.

One of her best-known pieces of visual art is the collage in the cover art for the single release of "Orgasm Addict" by the Buzzcocks (1977). The central image in a record sleeve designed by Malcolm Garrett, the collage shows a naked woman with an iron for a head and grinning mouths instead of nipples. "At this point, men's magazines were either DIY, cars or porn. Women's magazines were fashion or domestic stuff. So, guess the common denominator – the female body. I took the female form from both sets of magazines and made these peculiar jigsaws highlighting these various cultural monstrosities that I felt there were at the time." Linder was also a partner of Howard Devoto, a founding member of Buzzcocks, who left the group to form Magazine. She also designed the cover for Magazine's debut album Real Life (1978) and was known for her 'menstrual jewellery' (beads and ear-rings made of broken coat hangers with absorbent lint dipped in translucent glue and painted red, in order to resemble bloodied tampons) and the mythical 'menstrual egg-timer' (a series of beads with different colours – red, white and purple – devised to chronicle the cycle from ovulation to menstruation) that she designed for Tony Wilson's Factory Records (designated Fac 8), which never entered production. She also collaborated on a short film called Red Dress, a rare Factory/New Hormones project.

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