Chuck Sperry

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September 18, 2022 By squirt

The Sperry Collectible Card Set • Series 1

I’m very excited to announce the first in a series of premium collectible card sets featuring a curated selection of the most popular rock posters and prints from my extensive archive. 

The Sperry Collectible Card Set was artfully designed by renown art photographer and premium book designer Shaun Roberts, and it was edited by us both. We are thrilled to present this newest collaboration!

The set comes in a gorgeous fire red, smooth, sturdy portfolio fold box with a secure magnetic snap closure. Title and signature is in gold emboss. The inside cover is gloss printed with a beautiful floral pattern over red, as is the black bumper which snugly cradles the deck of poster cards. A red ribbon aids access to the sealed deck of 25 cards.

The cards measure 5.5″ x 8.5″. Each of the 25 collectable cards faithfully present a different classic Sperry poster on the front. On the back of each card are the poster details; surrounding floral decoration is printed in gold and black with a foil stamped signature.

The box comes shrink-wrapped. The cards come cellophane wrapped inside.

Only 1000 were made.


Sold Out. Thank You!

A live release will follow at TRPS Festival of Posters at the Hall of Flowers in San Francisco on October 15.

 

Filed Under: Art Prints Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Color X Color, Harman Projects, Mirus Gallery, Series 1, Sperry Collectible Card Set, The Rock Poster Society, TRPS

May 2, 2022 By squirt

“Syrinx” Variant Edition Release on May 3

Syrinx, 2022
21 x 32
Regular Edition of 300
7 colors on cream paper
Signed and Numbered

Not Available 

________________

Syrinx, 2022
21 x 32
Silver Edition of 10
7 colors on silver paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Syrinx, 2022
21 x 32
Gold Edition of 10
7 colors on gold paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Syrinx, 2022
21 x 32
Satin Black Edition of 20
7 colors on satin black paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Syrinx, 2022
21 x 32
Sparkle Foil Edition of 20
7 colors on sparkle foil
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Syrinx, 2022
21 x 32
Lava Foil Edition of 20
7 colors on lava foil
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Syrinx was a devotee of Artemis. When Pan saw her he was smitten. At first sight Syrinx ran away from Pan, bounding toward the reedy shore of a river, where the river nymphs helped her, and as she jumped into the water, she was transformed into reeds. Pan gathered the reeds he thought to have been Syrinx, and from them made his signature pan pipes, thus Syrinx was turned into music.

I released the regular edition of my latest muse “Syrinx” at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art retrospective exhibition, “Color x Color”. 

I will be making a very limited online release of my “Syrinx” variant editions on Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 9-10 am PST. (No regular editions will be offered online.)

Limited to one print (1) per household. This limit of one print (1) includes all variants offered. Subsequent orders will be cancelled.

I would like to welcome a lot of newcomers to my site! I’ll quickly explain how my releases on my website are conducted. My “Syrinx” variant editions will be available, right here, in this post on Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 9-10 am PST. The variants will appear at the same time as the PayPal “Buy Now” buttons. All the variants and their PayPal “Buy Now” buttons will appear at 9-10 am PST, and I will announce the price of each variant at the same time. Good luck to everyone, and as always, I am very appreciative of your support!

Filed Under: Art Prints Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Color X Color, Color x Color: Selections from the Chuck Sperry Archive, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Muses, Sappho, Syrinx

April 28, 2022 By squirt

“Sappho” Variant Edition Release on May 1

Sappho, 2022
21 x 32
Regular Edition of 300
7 colors on cream paper
Signed and Numbered

Not Available 

________________

Sappho, 2022
21 x 32
Silver Edition of 10
7 colors on silver paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Sappho, 2022
21 x 32
Gold Edition of 10
7 colors on gold paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Sappho, 2022
21 x 32
Satin Black Edition of 20
7 colors on satin black paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Sappho, 2022
21 x 32
Sparkle Foil Edition of 20
7 colors on sparkle foil
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Sappho, 2022
21 x 32
Lava Foil Edition of 20
7 colors on lava foil
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

Sappho was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. In ancient times, Sappho was widely regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets and was given names such as the “Tenth Muse” and “The Poetess”.

I released the regular edition of my latest muse “Sappho” at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art retrospective exhibition, “Color x Color”. 

I will be making a very limited online release of my “Sappho” variant editions on Sunday, May 1, 2022 at 9-10 am PST. (No regular editions will be offered online.)

Limited to one print (1) per household. This limit of one print (1) includes all variants offered. Subsequent orders will be cancelled.

I would like to welcome a lot of newcomers to my site! I’ll quickly explain how my releases on my website are conducted. My “Sappho” variant editions will be available, right here, in this post on Sunday, May 1, 2022 at 9-10 am PST. The variants will appear at the same time as the PayPal “Buy Now” buttons. All the variants and their PayPal “Buy Now” buttons will appear at 9-10 am PST, and I will announce the price of each variant at the same time. Good luck to everyone, and as always, I am very appreciative of your support!

Filed Under: Art Prints Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Color X Color, Color x Color: Selections from the Chuck Sperry Archive, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Muses, Sappho, Syrinx

April 28, 2022 By squirt

Photo Story: Opening Weekend “Color x Color” at Fort Wayne Museum of Art

Fort Wayne Museum of Art is currently hosting my retrospective exhibition of art, “Color x Color, Selections from the Chuck Sperry Archive.” The exhibition remains on view from April 23 to July 10, 2022.

I would like to thank the Fort Wayne Museum of Art for a spectacular opening last weekend! 

My supporters came from every corner of the country to share in the opening celebration of events. I can not thank each and every one of you enough for your beautiful energy and enthusiasm! The staff of the museum showed Olympian hospitality, good humor and grace to me and all my supporters, friends and family.

Special thanks to Museum CEO and President Charles Shepard and Museum Curator of Contemporary Art Josef Zimmerman for mounting this massive retrospective of my printmaking art, and the establishment of a special permanent collection of my entire body of work. I would like to send my appreciation to the entire organization, from trustees to staff who support the archive and the exhibition of my work. 

Talented photographer Shaun Roberts documented the excitement of opening night, artist talk, museum curator tour, and artist workshop at the museum (below).

Friday: Exhibition Opening

Saturday: Artist Talk with Carlo McCormick

Saturday: Curator Tour with Josef Zimmerman

Sunday: Printmaking Demonstration

Filed Under: Rock Posters Tagged With: Carlo McCormick, Chuck Sperry, Color X Color, Color x Color: Selections from the Chuck Sperry Archive, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Josef Zimmerman, Shaun Roberts

April 28, 2022 By squirt

“Color x Color” Chuck Sperry Retrospective at Fort Wayne Museum of Art until July

Fort Wayne Museum of Art is currently hosting my retrospective exhibition of art, “Color x Color, Selections from the Chuck Sperry Archive.” The exhibition remains on view from April 23 to July 10, 2022.

This is a collection of almost every poster Sperry has made. It was laborious work for him to make these posters over the decades, then he dug back into it all again for the purpose of putting together this show, and he did not half-ass it, as you will see. He dug deep. The level of his commitment to his art permeates  into everything he does, of which this exhibition is evidence.

Sperry’s art is monumental; his influences are rooted in the classics, from Alphonse Mucha to ancient Greco Roman art. He is a visionary in his field, not only in his art, but how he makes it. His understanding of his medium, screenprinting, and in the color theories expressed in his use of pairing and layering ink, is awe-inspiring and intimidating in the same glance. 

The Fort Wayne Museum of Art has seen and recognized the importance of Sperry’s work and the need to preserve it for future generations. Almost all the work in this exhibition is now a part of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s Chuck Sperry Archive. It will be housed in our permanent collection and cared for in perpetuity. This is a promise we do not take lightly; it takes considerable resources for a museum to steward an archive. As you will see, it is well worth it. 

— Josef Zimmerman, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art 

Photos: Shaun Roberts

The criteria for defining something as fine art is both selective and subjective, guided by academic bias, market forces, and the coded conceits of class. Value is rarely a matter of aesthetics alone. The broader field of visual culture, which is often more inclusive, populist and democratic than traditional art forms, allows something the art world often overlooks: relevance. This is not to diminish the importance of contemporary art, but to admit that it’s somewhat insular and rarified language not only speaks to a specialized few, but simply misses out on a lot of really great art. This brings us to the art of Chuck Sperry, and the terms by which we may learn to appreciate its value beyond the fetish of fandom. 

If culture is conditioned, something inherited like a received knowledge, we may as well admit that we all suffer from a kind of myopia, especially when it comes to art. But if we suffer from a complete lack of knowledge or understanding when it comes to something — be it ancient pottery, 10th Century Kufic calligraphy, or second generation abstract expressionism — we might still have some level of visual appreciation for it regardless of our ignorance. This is true about the rock posters of Chuck Sperry. The information contained within a Chuck Sperry print — most obviously the band, venue, and date, but also less evidently what that music means to people — can surely amplify our experience of these pictures among fans and music lovers. ,But, as someone who often enjoys his art significantly more than some of the bands he’s “working for,” there’s no denying his creativity, craft and vision in the artwork itself.

I, like many, have taken multiple chances on records just because the album cover art was just fantastic — and even kept a few for the art even when the music was bad. It would be nice to think that the pictorial appeal of Sperry’s seductive, subversive and saturate graphics might compel a few to check out the music. The point, however, is that it is hardly necessary to do so. Whereas a lot of art leaves people cold because they do not have the knowledge, often esoteric or obscure, to understand it, the art world typically shuns the likes of Chuck Sperry precisely because they have an inherent problem with how easy it is to understand. Value it seems, at least since the advent of Modernism and arguably even more so in our Post-Modern age, is invested in a degree of nuance and difficulty. 

There remains an abiding suspicion of those like Sperry whose art is appealing to the masses. We can’t hope to change this prejudice, and as one who works in the art world, I’ll admit a certain fondness for it, but Sperry’s instinct to reach and relate to people is not to be confused as a sort of pandering, for in fact it is rather more of an ideology. 

Sperry believes in art for the people. Though it is far easier to discern this concern in his overtly political art, time may certainly award some comprehension of how even the wild eye-candy of his concert posters also occupies a position of cultural resistance — once history gets past the play list of his clients. The very nature of what makes this art so misfit to the art historical cannon is what situates its opposition. Context rather than content, or more simply put, Sperry’s choice of medium and audience rather than his imagery, is fundamental in relaying his cultural politics. The art market, which is sadly the metric by which art is increasingly judged, is an economic system that rewards scarcity and uniqueness over serial production. This, too, functions as self-selecting determiner of audience. If you have to ask how much that painting is you’re not in the conversation.

By consciously choosing media such as printmaking as a populist vernacular and purportedly commercial practice, Chuck Sperry not only joins a tradition that extends from the likes of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha through the golden age of 1960s psychedelic rock posters, the rise of street art multiples and beyond, he proposes a kind of art that is affordable and available. A master at silkscreen and graphic design, a prolific purveyor of pictorial provocations, and a soulful trickster of impeccable integrity, Chuck Sperry is quite simply a fine artist who has chosen to make work for the masses. 

— Carlo McCormick 

Carlo McCormick is an American culture critic and curator living in New York City. He is the author of numerous books, monographs and catalogues on contemporary art and artists. McCormick lectures and teaches extensively at universities and colleges around the United States on popular culture and art. His writing has appeared in Effects : Magazine for New Art Theory, Aperture, Art in America, Art News, Artforum, Camera Austria, High Times, Spin, Tokion, Vice and other magazines. McCormick was Senior Editor of Paper. 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Carlo McCormick, Chuck Sperry, Color X Color, Color x Color: Selections from the Chuck Sperry Archive, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Josef Zimmerman

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Latest News

  • Sperry Solo “Universal” Coming to Paris
  • Sperry in Popland 2025 at KochxBos Gallery, Amsterdam
  • Chuck Sperry’s Alice Donut Poster
  • Chuck Sperry’s “The Mystic” & “Iphigenia” Blotters • 
Online Release with EQL
  • Available Now: Chuck Sperry’s Newest Protest Art Poster

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About Chuck Sperry

Chuck Sperry lives in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, where he’s made his particular style of rock poster designs for over 20 years. He operates Hangar 18, a silkscreen print studio, located in Oakland. Learn More…

Archives

Sperry Books: “Color x Color” • “Helikon” • “Chthoneon” • “Idyllion”

Latest Blog Posts

  • Sperry Solo “Universal” Coming to Paris
  • Sperry in Popland 2025 at KochxBos Gallery, Amsterdam
  • Chuck Sperry’s Alice Donut Poster
  • Chuck Sperry’s “The Mystic” & “Iphigenia” Blotters • 
Online Release with EQL
  • Available Now: Chuck Sperry’s Newest Protest Art Poster

Band, Venue, Year…

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