About Us

Whether you’re a fan, a collector or an art lover, Burst Gallery is for those who want to own iconic, classic, and hard-to-find moments from music history.

Four decades of experience

Founded in 2018, by Christopher Lees, the latest innovation from one of the pioneers of poster retail in a career that has spanned over forty years.

Burst Gallery founder Chris Lees in 1982.

Fuelled by his passion for punk, Lees’ career began with hunting down rare and imported vinyl. He sold these by mail order from the back pages of Sounds and NME magazines to fund his growing gig habit, which saw him travelling across Europe to see the likes of The Jam, UK Subs, The Damned and Siouxsie and The Banshees.

Curating moments in music

During the 1970’s, the nature of posters changed. While the bigger, more-established bands were making success synonymous with excess, punk was doing just the opposite. Rather than employing the expensive production values of longer-serving outfits, punk posters were free of bells and whistles, direct and straight to the point.
However, with the anti-punk, knee-jerk reaction from The Establishment and the older generation, gigs were cancelled with alarming regularity. Posters were torn town or defaced, making them the last testament of gigs that never happened.

A punk fan to his core, Chris started to collect and sell these posters and flyers, always on the lookout for these snapshots of musical history.

Prints in the UK

Chris in Stockholm, 1982 en route to see Siouxsie and the Banshees

Lees realised that he wasn’t alone in his passion for posters and his hobby quickly grew into a thriving business operating six days a week, with stalls at Camden, Soho, and Portobello Road markets.

As business grew beyond the collectors seeking the rare and unusual, he found himself supplying posters wholesale to more than 200 shops across the UK. As befits a dyed-in-the-wool punk, his first indoor outlet was established at the Jubilee Shopping Hall in Brighton, which was open for several years, before opening his own shop on Gardener Street at the start of the 1990’s.

Expanding quickly to three floors, Chris’ poster shop quickly became the biggest in the UK selling to fans, collectors, and gig-goers alike. In the early 2000’s he moved entirely online, leading the market in ecommerce for posters and eventually becoming one of the biggest online retailers of posters, prints, flyers and photos.

Burst Gallery is the next step in that evolution – a gallery dedicated to iconic and hard-to-find music photography for the discerning fan.

Why buy from Burst Gallery?

Listed in our extensive catalogue, you’ll find work from some of rock’s biggest legends of the lens including Brian Griffin (Echo and the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode, Iggy Pop etc) and Adrian Boot (Sex Pistols, Ramones, Grateful Dead etc), Martyn Goodacre (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys etc), Andy Wilsher (Oasis, Aphex Twin, The Prodigy etc), alongside up-and-coming photographers. From ABBA, to AC/DC, we have something for lovers of every genre.

Our cutting edge printing technology means that the image you receive is impeccably reproduced to the highest quality standards. Our prints are available in various sizes with mounting and framing options and every limited edition print is certified.

Currently, we have the biggest collection of music prints available in the UK, and we are on target towards having the biggest selection under one roof, anywhere on the planet. Our range is constantly being expanded to include more pictures, illustrations and art from your favourite bands, from oldies dating back to the 1950’s to the greatest acts in modern music.

Our first location is now open in Brighton, come and visit us in Sydney Street and explore our stunning music prints in person!

All our content contributors have signed a contract giving us permission to print their work in a poster format, and receive an agreed monthly royalty based on worldwide sales. We’re constantly looking for new photographers and artists, so if you fall into that category, then please contact us.