Bill Graham Presents
Poster
1967 (designed)
1967 (designed)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
The Fillmore in San Francisco is a historic music venue, named after its original location at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard. Known as the Fillmore Auditorium in the mid-1960s, concert promoter Bill Graham began a series of concerts featuring bands from the counterculture of the time. In 1968, due to his spiralling success, he moved to a larger venue which he named Fillmore West. Having closed in 1971, and after extensive repair work to fix earthquake damage, Graham's was revived when Live Nation reopened the original Fillmore venue in 1994.
San Francisco in the mid-1960s was the hub of the LSD and Hippie scene and the cultural and political rebellion of 1967's Summer of Love. The resulting influence of these factors on the artists of the area created the fantastic psychedelic posters of the Fillmore. Art dealer Jacaeber Kastor said of the posters, "They couldn't just tell you the information about the show. They had to tell you what kind of people you might meet, what kind of far out trip you might have or perhaps even reveal the mysteries of the universe. Wow. Quantum mechanics, visual mudwrestling, Acid test pop quiz on a phone pole!"
The artist of this poster, Wes Wilson, was a designer in the San Francisco small press company Contact, creating posters for Bill Graham's Fillmore and rival promoter Chet Helms' Avalon Ballroom. He stopped working for Helms in August 1966, as he received more artistic freedom from Graham. He adapted his lettering style from an Art Nouveau and Expressionism exhibition, expanding the outlines and shapes exaggeratedly, creating intense patterns for the backgrounds. He used vibrant and contrasting colours, which, combined with the patterns, often made the text almost indecipherable. His choice of colours was to reflect the nature of the stimulating light shows that accompanied the concerts.
This gig at the Fillmore Auditorium featured Jefferson Airplane, a seminal psychedelic band whose 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow is considered one of the key recordings of the Summer of Love. Also playing was Jimmy Reed, an American electric blues musician and songwriter and John Lee Hooker, a blues singer who developed his own 'talking blues' style.
San Francisco in the mid-1960s was the hub of the LSD and Hippie scene and the cultural and political rebellion of 1967's Summer of Love. The resulting influence of these factors on the artists of the area created the fantastic psychedelic posters of the Fillmore. Art dealer Jacaeber Kastor said of the posters, "They couldn't just tell you the information about the show. They had to tell you what kind of people you might meet, what kind of far out trip you might have or perhaps even reveal the mysteries of the universe. Wow. Quantum mechanics, visual mudwrestling, Acid test pop quiz on a phone pole!"
The artist of this poster, Wes Wilson, was a designer in the San Francisco small press company Contact, creating posters for Bill Graham's Fillmore and rival promoter Chet Helms' Avalon Ballroom. He stopped working for Helms in August 1966, as he received more artistic freedom from Graham. He adapted his lettering style from an Art Nouveau and Expressionism exhibition, expanding the outlines and shapes exaggeratedly, creating intense patterns for the backgrounds. He used vibrant and contrasting colours, which, combined with the patterns, often made the text almost indecipherable. His choice of colours was to reflect the nature of the stimulating light shows that accompanied the concerts.
This gig at the Fillmore Auditorium featured Jefferson Airplane, a seminal psychedelic band whose 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow is considered one of the key recordings of the Summer of Love. Also playing was Jimmy Reed, an American electric blues musician and songwriter and John Lee Hooker, a blues singer who developed his own 'talking blues' style.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Bill Graham Presents (series title) |
| Materials and techniques | Lithography on index card stock paper |
| Brief description | Poster advertising Jefferson Airplane, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker and the Stu Gardner Trio performing March 10 and 11, 1967, at the Winterland, and March 12, 1967, at Fillmore West, San Francisco. |
| Physical description | Poster advertising Jefferson Airplane, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker and the Stu Gardner Trio performing March 10 and 11 at the Winterland, and March 12, at Fillmore West, San Francisco in 1967. Peach background with lilac lettering and mint green, peach and purple psychedelic illustration. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Copy number | First edition |
| Credit line | Given by the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum |
| Object history | Transferred as part of a collection from the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York, in 1985. |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Place depicted | |
| Summary | The Fillmore in San Francisco is a historic music venue, named after its original location at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard. Known as the Fillmore Auditorium in the mid-1960s, concert promoter Bill Graham began a series of concerts featuring bands from the counterculture of the time. In 1968, due to his spiralling success, he moved to a larger venue which he named Fillmore West. Having closed in 1971, and after extensive repair work to fix earthquake damage, Graham's was revived when Live Nation reopened the original Fillmore venue in 1994. San Francisco in the mid-1960s was the hub of the LSD and Hippie scene and the cultural and political rebellion of 1967's Summer of Love. The resulting influence of these factors on the artists of the area created the fantastic psychedelic posters of the Fillmore. Art dealer Jacaeber Kastor said of the posters, "They couldn't just tell you the information about the show. They had to tell you what kind of people you might meet, what kind of far out trip you might have or perhaps even reveal the mysteries of the universe. Wow. Quantum mechanics, visual mudwrestling, Acid test pop quiz on a phone pole!" The artist of this poster, Wes Wilson, was a designer in the San Francisco small press company Contact, creating posters for Bill Graham's Fillmore and rival promoter Chet Helms' Avalon Ballroom. He stopped working for Helms in August 1966, as he received more artistic freedom from Graham. He adapted his lettering style from an Art Nouveau and Expressionism exhibition, expanding the outlines and shapes exaggeratedly, creating intense patterns for the backgrounds. He used vibrant and contrasting colours, which, combined with the patterns, often made the text almost indecipherable. His choice of colours was to reflect the nature of the stimulating light shows that accompanied the concerts. This gig at the Fillmore Auditorium featured Jefferson Airplane, a seminal psychedelic band whose 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow is considered one of the key recordings of the Summer of Love. Also playing was Jimmy Reed, an American electric blues musician and songwriter and John Lee Hooker, a blues singer who developed his own 'talking blues' style. |
| Bibliographic references |
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| Other number | BG 54 - Bill Graham's numbering system |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | S.725-2010 |
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| Record created | September 24, 2010 |
| Record URL |
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