Wes Wilson · Avalon Ballroom · June 1966

The Quick and the Dead

Designed by Wes Wilson for the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service’s second joint booking at the Avalon Ballroom, June 10–11, 1966. Cataloged as Family Dog FD-12, this was the first Family Dog poster to place a skull at the center of a Grateful Dead bill — a motif the band would carry for the rest of its history. The title puns on the pairing of “Quick”silver with the “Dead.”

This example has been hand-colored, likely in marker or a similar ink, with visible bleed-through on the verso; the coloring appears unfinished, stopping short of parts of the design. Whether this reflects a artist’s or printer’s variant, or a later, non-original embellishment, has not been determined. This example was obtained by Susan Rush directly from Wes Wilson at the time of publication in 1966.

Approximate size: 14 × 20½ in (35.5 × 52 cm), consistent with documented examples of FD-12.

Wes Wilson · Avalon Ballroom · May 1966

The Blues Project, Sons of Adam & Quicksilver Messenger Service

An early Wes Wilson design for Family Dog, promoting “The Laugh Cure” dance-concert at the Avalon Ballroom, May 13–14, 1966: The Blues Project from New York, the Sons of Adam from Los Angeles, and the Quicksilver Messenger Service from Mill Valley, with lights by Bill Ham. Cataloged as Family Dog FD-8.

Approximate size: 14 × 20 in (35.5 × 51 cm).

Alton Kelley & Stanley Mouse · Avalon Ballroom · November 1966

Grateful Dead & Oxford Circle

A Mouse Studios (Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse) design for the Grateful Dead’s November 4–5, 1966 engagement at the Avalon Ballroom with Oxford Circle, cataloged as Family Dog FD-33. Green ink on a star-and-ribbon ground frames the Family Dog trademark — one of the most recognized images to come out of the Avalon series.

Approximate size: 14 × 20 in (35.5 × 51 cm).

Mouse Studios (Bindweed Press) · Mt. Tamalpais Outdoor Theater · October 1966

Peace — Bola Sete, Grateful Dead & Quicksilver Messenger Service

A Winnie-the-Pooh-and-Piglet design by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley, printed by the Bindweed Press, for a Saturday-afternoon benefit at the Mt. Tamalpais Outdoor Theater on October 8, 1966, in support of Phil Drath, a write-in congressional candidate opposed to the Vietnam War. Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña were originally billed to headline and had to withdraw; Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete stepped in, alongside the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Approximate size: 14¼ × 20 in (36 × 51 cm).

Wes Wilson · Fillmore Auditorium · December 1966

Jefferson Airplane

A Wes Wilson design, numbered #42 in his own hand, for a three-night run at Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium, December 16–18, 1966, incorporating a Herb Greene band photograph inside sinuous, hand-lettered ribbons. Cataloged as Bill Graham BG-42.

Approximate size: 14 × 21 in (35.5 × 53 cm), the standard sheet size for the Bill Graham Fillmore series.

Wes Wilson · Winterland & Fillmore Auditorium · 1966

The Sound

Bill Graham Presents BG-29, first (black ink only) printing. For a run of concerts at Winterland (Sept. 23-24 and 30-Oct. 1) and two Sunday afternoons at the Fillmore Auditorium (Sept. 25 and Oct. 2), 1966, featuring Jefferson Airplane, Muddy Waters, and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Signed “Wes Wilson ’66” within the design. Considered one of the most iconic images of the 1960s psychedelic poster movement, pairing Wilson’s Art Nouveau-influenced lettering with a nude female figure at center.

Approximate size: 24½ × 14 in (62 × 35.5 cm), consistent with documented examples of the first printing.

Victor Moscoso · Avalon Ballroom · January 1967

The Miller Blues Band, Lee Michaels & Congress of Wonders

Victor Moscoso’s design for a two-night Family Dog engagement at the Avalon Ballroom, January 20–21, 1967, headlined by the Steve Miller Blues Band with Lee Michaels and the comedy troupe Congress of Wonders, lights by Ben Van Meter and Roger Hillyard. The vibrating maroon-and-gold snake charmer is one of Moscoso’s best-known images and is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Cataloged as Family Dog FD-44.

Approximate size: 14 1/16 × 20¼ in (35.7 × 51.5 cm).

Victor Moscoso · The Committee, 622 Broadway · 1967

The Chairs

A Neon Rose poster by Victor Moscoso for The Committee’s production of Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist two-hander The Chairs at its 622 Broadway theater in San Francisco, running Monday nights at 9pm beginning April 17, 1967. An example is held in the collection of the Denver Art Museum.

Approximate size: 20 × 14 in (51 × 35.5 cm).

Committee Theatre, 836 Montgomery · 1967

A Fash-In — with Sandy Bull

Not the New York band, but Velvet Underground, a North Beach clothing boutique at 471½ Broadway (with a second location, the Coast Gallery, in Big Sur): this poster advertises “A Fash-In” — a fashion happening with musician Sandy Bull — at the Committee Theatre, 836 Montgomery Street, on Friday, May 19, 1967, followed that same night by screenings of the satirical play MacBird at 8:30 and 11pm.

Approximate size: narrow handbill/broadside format, roughly 8½ × 17 in (21.5 × 43 cm) — estimated from the piece’s proportions; exact measurement recommended.

Committee Theatre, 836 Montgomery · 1967

MacBird

A narrow broadside for the Committee Theatre’s run of MacBird, Barbara Garson’s underground satire recasting Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson as Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. First circulated as a mimeographed pamphlet in 1966, the play was an off-Broadway sensation by early 1967; this poster advertises its Bay Area run at the Committee’s Montgomery Street venue, paired the same evening with the “Fash-In” event above.

Approximate size: narrow vertical streamer format, roughly 6 × 20 in (15 × 51 cm) — estimated from the piece’s proportions; exact measurement recommended.

California Hall, 625 Polk Street · circa 1967

Group Sex Committee Benefit

A benefit-dance poster in the dense, Art Nouveau–influenced style typical of 1967 San Francisco happenings, for an event at California Hall on Polk Street — a hall that hosted many of the era’s benefit dances and be-ins. The performer and sponsor names worked into the wing-like lettering are difficult to fully resolve from the surviving copy; further research is recommended before cataloging performer details or a firm date.

Approximate size: roughly 14 × 20 in (35.5 × 51 cm), estimated from typical dance-poster formats of the period; exact measurement recommended.

Berkeley municipal election · 1967

Vote for Jerry Rubin for Berkeley Mayor

A campaign poster for Jerry Rubin’s 1967 run for Mayor of Berkeley under the banner of “A New Community,” listing his platform — peace in Vietnam, an end to poverty, an end to police harassment, the 18-year-old vote, rent control — around a Yosemite-esque landscape. Rubin, who would go on to co-found the Yippies and stand trial as one of the Chicago Seven, took 22% of the vote in a four-way race decided April 4, 1967.

Approximate size: 13½ × 19 in (34 × 48 cm).

University Art Museum, UC Berkeley · April–May 1967

FUNK

The exhibition poster for FUNK, the landmark show curated by Peter Selz at UC Berkeley’s University Art Museum, April 18–May 29, 1967. Widely regarded as the exhibition that gave the Bay Area’s loose, irreverent sculptural movement its name, FUNK brought together Bruce Conner, Peter Voulkos, Robert Arneson, Jim Melchert, William T. Wiley, Roy De Forest, David Gilhooly, and others.

Approximate size: roughly 23 × 29 in (58 × 74 cm), a typical museum exhibition-poster format of the period — estimated; exact measurement recommended.

San Francisco Museum of Art · 1967

Paul Klee Retrospective

The San Francisco leg of Paul Klee, 1879–1940: A Retrospective Exhibition, a major traveling show organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum with the Pasadena Art Museum, which opened in New York in February 1967 before touring to Pasadena, San Francisco, and other venues. This printing advertises the San Francisco Museum of Art’s engagement, April 14–May 14, at its former home in the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue.

Approximate size: roughly 24 × 32 in (61 × 81 cm) — estimated from the piece’s proportions; exact measurement recommended.

Gallery Space, South of Market Cultural Center · 934 Brannan Street

Katy Allen

An exhibition poster for artist Katy Allen at Gallery Space, presented by the South of Market Cultural Center at 934 Brannan Street — the building that has operated as SOMArts Cultural Center since the 1970s and remains an active Bay Area gallery today. Sponsored by the Friends of Katy Allen Committee with the San Francisco Art Commission; the exact exhibition year was not legible on the surviving copy and should be confirmed before final cataloging.

Approximate size: roughly 17 × 22 in (43 × 56 cm) — estimated; exact measurement recommended.

Sam Smidt · Jazz Collectors Series · 1967

Miles Davis

A reversed halftone portrait of Miles Davis rendered in Smidt’s signature high-contrast style, with the trumpeter’s first name set in heavy block lettering. Part of the same 1967 series as the Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday portraits below; a Gerry Mulligan example from the series is documented at 17 × 22 in.

Approximate size: roughly 17 × 22 in (43 × 56 cm), consistent with documented examples from the series; exact measurement recommended.

Sam Smidt · Jazz Collectors Series · 1967

Duke Ellington

A reversed halftone portrait of Duke Ellington from Sam Smidt’s 1967 Jazz Collectors Series, in the same reduced, high-contrast photographic style as the Miles Davis and Billie Holiday portraits in this grouping.

Approximate size: roughly 17 × 22 in (43 × 56 cm), consistent with documented examples from the series; exact measurement recommended.

Sam Smidt · Jazz Collectors Series · 1967

Billie Holiday

A magenta-toned portrait of Billie Holiday from Sam Smidt’s 1967 Jazz Collectors Series, completing the set of three jazz portraits in this collection alongside Miles Davis and Duke Ellington.

Approximate size: roughly 17 × 22 in (43 × 56 cm), consistent with documented examples from the series; exact measurement recommended.

Tom Wesselmann · 1972 Munich Olympics

Foot — Poster for the Olympic Games in Munich

Pop artist Tom Wesselmann’s contribution to the official poster series for the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, one of a program of posters commissioned from internationally known artists to represent, in the Games organizers’ words, the intertwining of sport and art. Wesselmann’s design reduces a runner’s foot to large flat fields of color against solid green, with the Olympic rings set in the lower corner — signed in the plate and dated variously 1970 (design) and 1972 (the Games themselves).

Approximate size: 33.9 × 25.1 in (86 × 63.8 cm), consistent with documented examples of the official series printing.