Family Dog FD-12. Grateful Dead & Quicksilver Messenger Service, Avalon Ballroom, June 10-11, 1966. First Family Dog poster to place a skull at the center of a Grateful Dead bill. Hand colored by Wes Wilson.

At auction

Heritage Auctions is offering this first-printing Family Dog poster (FD-12) for the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and the New Tweedy Brothers at the Avalon Ballroom, June 10–11, 1966. Heritage notes it was the first Grateful Dead concert poster to show a skull or skeleton. Wes Wilson hand-colored this copy with watercolor, felt-tip marker and colored pencil, and gave it to Susan Rush in San Francisco in 1966; it stayed in her collection, rolled and stored, for nearly sixty years. Heritage chose it for the cover of the auction catalog, and the lot includes Susan Rush's letter of provenance.

Read the full Heritage Auctions description →

Provenance: From Susan Rush's personal collection of posters from her time in San Francisco between 1965-67. This poster and several others from the Family Dog productions were given to Susan by Wes Wilson in 1966 when they were working together on a cover for the Junior League Spectator magazine.

Sources: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "The Quick and the Dead: Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, New Tweedy Brothers, June 10-11, Avalon Ballroom." Collection database. https://www.famsf.org/artworks/the-quick-and-the-dead-grateful-dead-quicksilver-messenger-service-new-tweedy-brothers-june-10-11-avalon-ballroom

University of Delaware Library, Special Collections. "FD-12: Avalon Ballroom, June 10, 11, 1966: Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, New Tweedy Brothers." Finding Aids for Archival Collections. https://findingaids.lib.udel.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/216881