Chuck Sperry

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Thank You for Sharing an Incredible 2024 • Year In Review

Photo: Shaun Roberts

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I would like to give all my friends and supporters a heartfelt thank you for sharing an incredible 2024, full of amazing events and watershed achievements! 

2024 bore witness to San Francisco’s warm welcome of my work as I received a lifetime membership to the de Young and Legion of Honor Museums in appreciation for works which rest in their permanent collection. Additionally, the de Young and Legion of Honor Museum Stores now carry “Color x Color” – which is available at the link below. 

SIGNED Color x Color at Museum Stores

Artist Chuck Sperry at the Art of Noise exhibition at SFMOMA. May 2024. Photo: Shaun Roberts.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art brought my work into their permanent collection and showed these pieces in “The Art of Noise” exhibition through spring and summer. It’s thrilling to receive this institutional acknowledgement.

Opening reception. “Home Show” a Chuck Sperry retrospective at The Haight Street Art Center, San Francisco. On view from October 17th through November 24, 2024. Photo: Shaun Roberts.

Meanwhile, in my neighbourhood of the Haight-Ashbury I received three shows across the year: “My Minds Eye” at Psychedelic SF Art Gallery, “Home Show: A Chuck Sperry Retrospective” at the Haight Street Art Center, and The Rock Poster Society, Festival of Rock Posters which I never miss at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. All three shows were hearty reminders of my love of the city and a celebration of the living soul of San Francisco.

Packed house at Harman Projects for Chuck Sperry’s April opening of “Only Human” in New York City.

Feeling buoyed by hometown acceptance, Harman Projects launched my exhaustive solo show “Only Human” in art capital New York City, and followed with Art On Paper NYC. It was amazing to see everyone in New York City share in such an amazing celebration!

Europe called again with “Popland 4” at KochxBos Gallery, curated by amazing French artist Ciou in Amsterdam. “Only Human” solo travelled to L’Oeil Ouvert Gallery in Paris, where Beaux Arts Magazine dubbed my show one of the top five most captivating shows in the art capital of Europe. Both shows made waves on both sides of the Atlantic.

I finished the year with a solo at L’Oeil Ouvert, Paris – “Future In The Balance” which is on view until January 31 with work available through the gallery at the link below. I’m happy to report that my solo received major attention, listing on The City of Paris’ official event website, Sortir a Paris among other notices, and even took to the airwaves on OUI FM. See the link below for my available works.

AVAILABLE WORKS at L’Oeil Ouvert, Paris

I teamed up with Vote Equality, Spoke Art and The Roxie Theater to produce a benefit screening of RATIFIED, a film documenting the struggle for ERA. My poster was made the official movie poster while this spirited and important film moves into distribution and streaming next year.

I’m thrilled my work showed with Harman Projects at CONTEXT Art Miami during Art Basel, Miami Art Week – and in appreciation of San Francisco love, a very limited Artist Edition of 100 “Home Show” posters is available now by joining Harman Projects EQL launch below.

HOME SHOW EQL LAUNCH

Also there are a very limited number of my iconic “Joy” and “Pneuma” wood panels which were shown in Miami and are available through Harman Project’s CONTEXT Art Fair exhibition viewing room – see link below.

AVAILABLE WORKS HARMAN PROJECTS AT CONTEXT

I am so very grateful for an outstanding year and the support of the museum teams, gallery teams, volunteers, friends who showed up to help carry the day, and friends and supporters who came to share and revelled in the joy and love of creative energy. I’m heartened by our human family, and encouraged by your emotion, soul, light and laughter. Here’s to 2025! Please take care of each other and assert your human spirit!

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Color x Color at de Young & Legion of Honor Museum Stores

Recently, the well-curated de Young & Legion of Honor Museum Stores have graciously cradled my 752 page art book Color x Color onto their shelves for browsing and buying. Yes, both museum stores will carry my book! 

Also, you’ll find Color x Color is now available online through the link below. Your purchase directly supports the collections and exhibitions of the de Young and Legion of Honor museums. I urge you to purchase my book there and kindly support the arts!

BUY NOW & SUPPORT THE ARTS

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Mission Muralismo Book Release Party at the de Young Museum

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I’ll be signing books at this event at the de Young Museum on November 6, 2009. My mural inside the entrance of the Redstone Building at 16th and Capp is featured in Mission Muralismo, the beautiful hard cover art book that covers the Mission Mural scene.

Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young presents Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo, in partnership with Precita Eyes Muralists

5:30 PM – 8:45 PM
November 6, 2009


The de Young Museum hosts a year-long series celebrating the just released Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo (Abrams, 2009), edited by Annice Jacoby, with a foreword by Carlos Santana, as part of the museum’s weekly program Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young.

This series celebrates one of San Francisco’s greatest assets, the Mission District arts community, a rising star on the global art map. Both cutting-edge and traditional street artists will offer lectures and performances sharing their art, insights, musings, experiences, and perspectives.

These programs are offered FREE of charge in the free zone of the museum. For more information, visit www.missionmuralismo.com.

November 6
Tonight, join us for a kick-off book launch extravaganza!
Dress code: Mission festive! (optional)

The HEART of the Mission, a Celebration of Art and Community, including many of the artists, photographers, and writers featured in Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo; live music by Dr. Loco’s Rockin’ Jalapeno Band; poetry and performances by Lorna Dee Cervantes, Stephen Cervantes, Francisco X, Lori B (Bloustein) and Andrew Voight; talks by the book’s editor, Annice Jacoby, artist and writer Jaime Cortez; projections of thousands of archival and current Mission murals, including a ten-year span of the deAppropriation wall; art activities for people of all ages and MORE! Free for All.

1934 Strike

In my mural I depict a democratic workers’ meeting, Strike Planning at a 1934 Labor Council Meeting, held in the auditorium of the Redstone Building, which was then the Labor Temple of San Francisco. In 1934 Harry Bridges, the legendary head of the International Longshoreman’s Association, led a city-wide strike of all unions in the city of San Francisco. It was the only city-wide, pan-union strike of any city in the entire history of the United States. The circular inset depicts the morning of “Bloody Thursday,” July 5, 1934 when 1000 police attempted to clear picketers and 64 people were injured and two killed.

The governor sent national guard and two federal tanks while reactionary holligans raided labor newspaper offices in the ensuing days. My mural depicts the workers meeting at this time to democratically focus the aims of the strike.

I worked on this mural in co-operation with CAMP / Redstone Building Mural Project which was awarded a Haas Foundation Grant. Other muralists in this CAMP / Redstone Building Mural Project project were Rigo, TWIST (Barry McGee), Aaron Noble, Scott Williams, Susan Greene, John Fadeff, and Isis Rodriguez.

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

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