San Francisco rock posters collection

During the 1950s and 1960s, San Francisco had the largest bohemian community in the United States. By the mid-1960s, that movement had metamorphosized into a hippie movement centered in the city’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. As this vibrant scene grew, public dance concerts became popular. These included the Acid Tests organized by Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. Two promoters, Bill Graham and Chet Helms, moved to the forefront in promoting these dance concerts.

Graham (1931-1991) was a veteran of the city’s artistic community and manager of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. In November 1965, he joined with Helms’s Family Dog Presents production company to organize a dance concert at a private residence to raise money for the Mime Troupe’s legal defense fund. Two more fundraisers were held at the Fillmore Auditorium, in December 1965 and January 1966. In February 1966, the Jefferson Airplane headlined Graham’s first non-benefit dance concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium.

The February 1966 dance concerts and attendant use of drugs, notably psychedelics such as LSD, attracted the attention of police. Graham was denied a dance hall permit by the city for a subsequent dance concert in April 1966, but held it anyway. Police raided the event and arrested Graham and fourteen concert goers. A public outcry over the crackdown ensued and the city subsequently certified Graham and later Helms as "dance-hall keepers."

Helms (b. 1942) was a civil rights activist from Texas turned entrepreneur. He promoted his first dance concert at the Fillmore Auditorium on February 19, 1966, but soon moved to the Avalon Ballroom, where Big Brother and the Holding Company was his house band until it began touring nationally with the addition of Janis Joplin, a lead singer whom Helms had lured from Texas. From 1966 to 1968, Helms produced 144 individual dance concerts and dance concert series at the Fillmore Auditorium and Ballroom, and sixteen dance concerts at his Family Dog dancehall in Denver, Colorado. He and Graham were in friendly competition until Family Dog Productions went bankrupt in December 1968, leaving the dance concert scene to Graham.

Graham was adept at organizing events that mixed eclectic musical combinations with light shows in highly sensory environments. These musical combinations included rock, blues, folk and jazz, frequently involving obscure established artists and up-and-coming young artists. From 1968 to 1971, Graham promoted 290 dance concerts and dance concert series at the Fillmore Auditorium (later the Fillmore West) and Winterland Auditorium in San Francisco and at other California venues, and 208 dance concerts and dance concert series at the Fillmore East in New York City. Graham closed the Fillmores in 1971 because changes in the music business had made it increasingly difficult for him to present musicians who were not already commercially successful.

From the beginning, Helms and Graham commissioned artists to create posters for their dance concerts that were mounted on walls, telephone poles, and lampposts throughout the San Francisco Bay area. Although "psychedelic" is a term usually associated with drug use, it also describes art that seeks to reproduce the effects of psychedelic drugs. By that definition, many of the posters in this collection are psychedelic. These posters are characterized by vibrating colors and patterns and bold lettering that often is nearly illegible. Some poster artists looked to Hieronymous Bosch and the Art Nouveau tradition for inspiration, while others developed their own distinctive styles. The 378 posters in the collection represent the works of forty-nine artists. Among the best known artists are Lee Conklin, Rick Griffin, Bonnie MacLean, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, David Singer, and Wes Wilson.

Hillis, David. Little Princess 109: A Light Show Flashback, 1967-1977. Unpublished oral history, 2002. (See manuscripts librarian for access to a copy.) King, Eric. The Collector’s Guide to Psychedelic Rock Concert Posters, Postcards and Handbills, 1965-1973, Volume I. Privately published, 2003. King, Eric. Drugs and Psychedelic Poster Art. Retrieved November 18, 2003 from http://home.earthlink.net/~therose7/drugs.htm Lemke, Gayle. The Art of the Fillmore, 1966-1971. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999. McNally, Dennis. A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead. New York: Broadway Books, 2002. Psychedelic Rock Posters of Haight-Ashbury, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., March 26-May 19, 2002. Retrieved December 10, 2003 from http://www.sdmart.org/exhibition-high-us.html