The psychedelic artist-stoned out tripster or poster design genius?

The psychedelic posters produced in San Francisco between 1966 and 1968 have become a legend of contemporary Western culture and the psychedelic era often compared to the psychedelic trip itself. An unusual and extraordinary burst of creative spirit was driven by the music of Haight-Ashbury and the poster artists were no doubt embedded in this scene.

In the history of the modern poster, which barely covers two centuries, the psychedelic poster stands out––but were the artists driven by the LSD experience alone or were they modern geniuses of color achieving movement with variations of hue and optical effects?

Truly, these posters are art objects that historians do not know what to do with or what to make of. Not unlike the remembrance of the music, the drugs, the counter culture and alternative lifestyles, documentation of these artists is a bit blurry. As the popular joke goes, “if you remember Woodstock––you weren’t there.”

Most agree on the superiority of the work by the legendary artists of the psychedelic era known as the big five. They are: Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelly. We also know that the psychedelic posters were almost always hand-lettered, and even though the text might have been based on existing typefaces of that era, the compositions were truly organic, that made much greater use of color contrast that has ever been seen before in the history of graphic design. It must be assumed then that one would have to have had an LSD experience to produce these vibrating works of art.

Wes Wilson's pre-psychedelic efforts

Wes Wilson is probably the best known of the big five known for his poster designs for Bill Graham owner and producer of the Filmore East and West concert venues. His early poster produced for the Beatles at candlestick Park in late August 1966 shows nothing of the route he would partake in his future endeavors. The text for this poster is highly readable and the design is static. The passages in Wilson’s psychedelic poster concoctions done for the likes of Jefferson Airplane and the Byrds would have one in a trance in the act of reading––if reading them was possible at all. In his posters of the late 60s and early 70s Wilson feathers the letter forms and build up his compositions with a series of asymmetric curves and opposing curves. Certainly his influences came from Art Nouveau, but the color sense used here is a lava lamp of LSD excitement. In an article appearing in Time magazine in 1967 and titled “Graphics: Nouveau Frisco,” Wilson listed Van Gogh, Alfonse Mucha, and Gustav Klimt among his influences––but the comparisons stop there. Very contrary to typographic tradition, Wilson took his lead from the world he was embedded in. 

Psychedelic rock included phenomenal light shows, with slide projections and strobe lights that were intended to kick in the sensory experience of LSD or mescaline. It is impossible to fathom the utopian ideality of the this era without considering the role of drugs and their influence on art and artists. Timothy Leary’s book the Politics of Ecstasy published in 1968, was well in sync with the findings of Dr. Humphrey Osmond, the author of the studies he made on the use of LSD and mescaline as a treatment for schizophrenia. In an article in Look Magazine in September 1959, none other than Cary Grant spoke out about his successful treatment with the drug. The posters created in Haight-Ashbury with their movement of swirls and spirals and clashing complementary colors were a clear reference to LSD participation. 

The psychedelic movement was quick to disappear and in the spring of 1967. Wes Wilson discontinued his work for Bill Graham (he noted for financial reasons). In October of that year, and anarchist performance group called the Diggers put together a well publicized San Francisco parade to parody a funeral that they entitled “Death of the Hippie-Son of Mass Media”.

The hippie, as well as psychedelic poster art, had died. The organic curvilinear letter forms like the ones seen on the Are You Experienced Jimi Hendrix album cover would soon be replaced by the sparse (but memorable)design done by Richard Hamilton in 1968 for the Beatles White Album.

Were the 60s psychedelic artists stoned out tripsters or poster design geniuses? 

Stoned out or not, the big five artists were master craftsman, geniuses of color, and compositional wizards that provided an invaluable reference to a culture that is still looked upon with enthusiasm by the younger generation of artists today. They did not copy the Masters of the Art Nouveau movement, but brought their own modern sense of originality that reflected the world around them.

When I was a very little kid my best friends brother did attend Woodstock. I know he was there–because he couldn’t remember anything about it either. He did, however, come back with one hell-of-a poster!