James Cauty is a British artist and musician.
As a 17 year old he painted the popular “The Lord of the Rings” poster for British retailer Athena.
Between 1981-2 he was the guitarist in a band called Angels 1-5, who recorded a Peel session on 1st July 1981. He is now best known as a leading innovator in the birth of the ambient house genre; and as the man who (along with former bandmate Bill Drummond) burnt one million pounds.
He was a founding member of wild pop groups The Orb, The JAMMS, The KLF and art do-gooders The K-Foundation.
In 2003 Cauty founded the Blacksmoke Organisation, an eco-friendly post-terrorist peacenik art collective. Here he produced the limited edition Black Smoke, Stamps of Mass Destruction print series which were the focus of huge media attention (featuring on the front page of the Times).
James Cauty founded CNPD (Cautese National Postal Disservice) in October 2005 and since then he has been working to bring the world the finest in iconic, iconoclastic and topical stamp art. This stamp art takes the form of real stamps, first day covers and limited edition prints.
Through a series of cunning marketing ploys including small and inexpensive editions, and the untimely deletion of popular images (The Great Stamp Culls), a highly collectable art form has been established.
These prints were eventually withdrawn after the Royal Mail threatened him with legal action, and have now become highly collectable as a result.
