Welcome to the official website of Chuck Sperry, currently based out of San Francisco, CA. This biography (below) is a brief overview. If you would like more comprehensive biographic information please click the tab “Biographical Information” for a complete listing of shows and more (above).

Chuck Sperry’s Biography

Chuck Sperry was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1962. He was exposed to art at a very early age by his creative parents. His father was apprenticed to master sculptor Robert Koepnick (who studied under famous Swedish sculptor Carl Milles at The Cranbrook Academy of Art). As a boy, Sperry worked along side his father making sculptures and drawings. At the same time, he was enrolled in extra-curricular arts classes at the Living Arts Center and The Dayton Art Institute.

Sperry’s older brothers and sister had many San Francisco style rock posters in their rooms when he was growing up where he saw Gary Grimshaw’s posters, among others. Sperry ventured to poster shops as a teenager and was exposed to
Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso and Peter Max.

Sperry had a dual major at the University of Missouri – Art and Journalism – training to be an editorial cartoonist. He created editorial cartoons for the student paper – “the maneater” – twice a week for four years, and worked at the “Columbia Tribune” for one year after graduation.

Moving to New York City in 1985, Sperry co-edited “World War 3 Illustrated” for four years with a famous editorial board of today’s top illustrators: Peter Kuper, Eric Drooker and Seth Tobocman. WW3 continues today with Sperry as a contributor. Over the years WW3 has also published such art luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Sue Coe, Spain Rodriguez, David Wonjarowicz, and Anton Van Dalen – and has gained critical praise from art critic Lucy Lippard in “Art in The Public Interest” (Da Capo Press, NY).

WW3 has published two books of collections from the magazine.
- World War 3 Illustrated 1980-1988 (Fantagraphics Books, Seattle)
- World War 3 Illustrated: Confrontational Comics (Four Walls Eight Windows, NY)

Sperry organized a National Endowment for The Arts granted retrospective of WW3 in 1990.

He moved to San Francisco in 1989 – contributed to underground comics – “Last Gasp Comics and Stories”; and edited “Filth Weekly Weird News” – a free underground humor magazine that published 25 issues in 4 years and had a circulation of 10,000.

When Filth closed it’s doors, Sperry joined the Psych Sparkplug Printing Collective in SF, and after 3 years opened his own poster printing company – The Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company – with partner Ron Donovan.

After 10 years – The Firehouse released their rock poster art in a beautifully illustrated 96 page book published by Last Gasp of San Francisco -

“Eyesore: Recent Litter From The Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company.”

This book is introduced by New York art critic and Juxtapoz associate editor Carlo McCormick (in addition to introductions in French, German and Italian) and has an extensive interview by V. Vale, publisher of Search and Destroy and RE/Search magazines.

Add this monograph to the growing shelf of books adorned with Sperry’s posters. Among these titles are:

• The Art of Modern Rock – Chronicle Books
• Gigposters: Rock Show Art of The 21st Century – Quirk Books
• Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo (forward by Carlos Santana) – Abrams
• Electric Frankenstein – High-Energy Punk Rock & Roll Poster Art – Dark Horse
• Peace Signs – The Anti-War Movement Illustrated – Edition Olms
• Tiki Art Now! – Last Gasp
• Book Cover: “Beautiful Children” by Charles Bock – Random House
• Book cover: “Lipstick Traces” by Greil Marcus – Harvard University Press
• Book cover: “Get Up” by Bucky Sinister – Conari

Since 1997 the Firehouse has created approximately 500 posters of their own design – and has printed posters for Frank Kozik, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, and Victor Moscoso.
In 2006 Eric Clapton commissioned three posters for three nights at Madison Square Garden. Since 2006 The Firehouse has created 10 different posters for Eric Clapton, an ongoing project Firehouse really enjoys.

Recently Firehouse has been commissioned to art direct and create a series of silkscreened rock posters for The Warfield and The Regency in San Francisco for Goldenvoice. In just over six months The Firehouse has created 50 posters for these two venues – and still continue to the present day.