Chuck Sperry

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January 24, 2020 By squirt

Edwardian Ball 2020 Poster

Edwardian Ball 2020
16.5 x 35
Edition of 150
3 colors on cream paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

This poster is officially available at the show in SF. I will be making a very limited online release of this poster on Sunday, January 26, 2020 at a random time.

________________

It’s Edwardian Ball time again, and as always, it’s a great pleasure to work with Justin Katz, the Edwardian Ball impresario, and once again I had a lot of fun making this poster!

My Edwardian Ball posters always have an edge of social critique in them. They are done with a wink and a nod, in keeping with the enjoyment of attending such an elaborate period pageant.

Most of the attendees also realize that the Edwardian era was one of unabashed and ostentatious oligarchy, unrivaled economic imperialism and a presumed European superiority complex. It’s all of these things that makes the period so bizarre to us today. I’ve always endeavored to reveal this outrageous and bizarre sense of imperial entitlement in my Edwardian Ball posters, and keep them wild and fun.

I try to channel the spirit of our age in a non-linear way with each year’s Edwardian Ball poster, making allegory, or touching a simple parallel between our 21st Century experience and the far-away world of Edwardian “Society.” 

2020 started with royals Harry and Meghan Windsor giving up their titles and station, causing all of us to ask, “Is royalty all it’s cracked up to be?”

My thoughts turned to poor, rich Consuelo Vanderbilt — inspirational Edwardian beauty. Crowds waited outside her Manhattan home to catch a glimpse of her striding between her door and carriage. Many would have her hand in marriage.

Her mother, Alva, shocked New York Society (aka “The Four Hundred”) by divorcing Consuelo’s father, a New York railroad millionaire, and schemed to regain her social standing by marrying daughter Consuelo to the greatest possible social advantage whether Consuelo was willing or not. Alva forced her daughter to wear a steel rod strapped to her back to improve her posture, whipped her with a riding crop, and awkwardly forced suitors of the highest possible rank upon her.

In rode Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, resident of a palace, related to royalty, titled, already romantically attached to another lady and deeply in debt — like a prince and frog all rolled into one. Consuelo defied the Duke and her mother. Alva locked her in her room until she gave in. 

For the tidy sum of $2.5 million (75 million today) Alva would marry Consuelo to the Duke. He could banish his debts and she would gain the title. 

Consuelo cried into her wedding veil on 6 November 1895. It was a faithless union, he cheated almost immediately, and Consuelo retaliated by cheating too. She kept a loaded revolver at her bedside to keep the Duke away, notwithstanding they had two sons, which Consuelo famously called, “the heir and the spare.”

Separated in 1906, divorced in 1921, with the acursed marriage finally annulled in 1926, she made her eventual total exit from the cad Duke and his suffocating royal society. Her second husband was French Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Balsan, daring balloon, airplane and hydroplane pilot, friend to the Wright Brothers, a dashing mustachioed Edwardian hero. Leaving all that royal balderdash on the ground below Consuelo soared off into the clouds with her French flyboy — and lived to the ripe old age of 87.   

 

Filed Under: Art Prints Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Edwardian Ball

January 25, 2019 By squirt

Edwardian Ball 2019 Poster

Edwardian Ball 2019
19 x 35
Edition of 125
3 colors on cream paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

This poster is officially available at the show in SF and LA. I will be making a very limited online release of this poster on Sunday, January 27, 2019 at a random time.

________________

It’s Edwardian Ball time again, and as always, it’s a great pleasure to work with Justin Katz, the Edwardian Ball impresario, and once again I had a lot of fun making this poster!

My Edwardian Ball posters always have an edge of social critique in them. They are done with a wink and a nod, in keeping with the enjoyment of attending such an elaborate period pageant.

Most of the attendees also realize that the Edwardian era was one of unabashed and ostentatious oligarchy, unrivaled economic imperialism and a presumed European superiority complex. It’s all of these things that makes the period so bizarre to us today. I’ve always endeavored to reveal this outrageous and bizarre sense of imperial entitlement in my Edwardian Ball posters, and keep them wild and fun.

I try to channel the spirit of our age in a non-linear way with each year’s Edwardian Ball poster, making allegory, or touching a simple parallel between our 21st Century experience and the far-away world of Edwardian “Society.” 

2019 was the year we entered “The Post-Truth World.” I’m not buying the ticket to that ride, really-but-really, but it made me think of the eminently Edwardian and irrational — Rasputin — spiritualist, con-man and emotional vampire to the Czar Romanov family. 

Spiritualists were fashionable to the ultra-wealthy oligarchs of the period. Rasputin boasted the mirror-image of a perfect pedigree: a peasant and holy man. His ferrel lack of charm and grace was thrilling to the elite circles he traversed in imperial Russia. Rasputin’s folksy and disarming gnosticism was — I’ll use a word we hear a lot today — “unprecedented.”

Clever and conniving, Rasputin snaked away the patronage of Czarina Alexandra Romanov, empress of Russia, with its ability to bestow wealth and prestige. By degrees, he would hold a nation’s leader mesmerized, and participate in bringing about the self-destruction of Russia’s imperial order. 

Soon the fabulously wealthy dynastic Romanov family would abdicate their empire, be brought down by the Bolsheviks, become prisoners of the revolution, and be bound for bleak incarceration and execution. I guess the moral is: Don’t be a sucker to a con-man.

Filed Under: Art Prints, Events Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Edwardian Ball

February 8, 2018 By squirt

Edwardian Ball 2018 Poster

Edwardian Ball 2018
15 x 35
Edition of 125
3 colors on cream paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

________________

This poster is officially available at the show in LA. I will be making a very limited online release of this poster on Sunday, February 11, 2018 at a random time.

________________

It’s Edwardian Ball time again, and as always, it’s a great pleasure to work with Justin Katz, the Edwardian Ball impresario, and once again I had a lot of fun making this poster!

My Edwardian Ball posters always have an edge of social critique in them. They are done with a wink and a nod, in keeping with the enjoyment of attending such an elaborate period pageant.

Most of the attendees also realize that the Edwardian era was one of unabashed and ostentatious oligarchy, unrivaled economic imperialism and a presumed European superiority complex. It’s all of these things that makes the period so bizarre to us today. I’ve always endeavored to reveal this outrageous and bizarre sense of imperial entitlement in my Edwardian Ball posters, and keep them wild and fun.

My poster this year is a fanciful portrait of famed New York titan and oligarch, John Jacob Astor IV, with his pregnant, 18 year old, newlywed wife Madeleine — during their deliciously scandalous honeymoon to France and Egypt — on an evening walk outside the Paris Opera sometime before returning to America aboard the Titanic.

The wealthiest man aboard the doomed ship, and with $25,000 cash discovered frozen in his pocket, Astor went down with the ship. A cautionary tale for the Trump Era.

Read more about Chuck Sperry & his newest art book here

Filed Under: Art Prints, Events Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Edwardian Ball

January 17, 2017 By squirt

Edwardian Ball 2017 Poster

Edwardian Ball 2017
15 x 35
Edition of 125
3 colors on cream paper
Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!
_______________

It’s Edwardian Ball time again, and as always, it’s a great pleasure to work with Justin Katz, the Edwardian Ball impresario, and once again I had a lot of fun making this poster!

My Edwardian Ball posters always have an edge of social critique in them. They are done with a wink and a nod, in keeping with the enjoyment of attending such an elaborate period pageant.

Most of the attendees also realize that the Edwardian era was one of unabashed and ostentatious oligarchy, unrivaled economic imperialism and a presumed European superiority complex. It’s all of these things that makes the period so bizarre to us today. I’ve always endeavored to reveal this outrageous and bizarre sense of imperial entitlement in my Edwardian Ball posters, and keep them wild and fun.

This year my poster depicts Cupid & Psyche, the belle of the ball and her accomplice, looking for her next intended target.

Filed Under: Events, Rock Posters Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Edwardian Ball

January 22, 2016 By squirt

Edwardian Ball 2016 Poster

Edwardian Ball 2016 event poster by Chuck Sperry

Edwardian Ball 2016
18 x 35
Edition 0f 125
3 colors on cream paper
Signed and Numbered

(One random order will receive a bonus, free, give-away B&W Test, Edwardian Ball poster, the “White Russian”)

Sold Out – Thank You!

_______________

This poster is officially available at the show. I will be making a very limited online release of this poster on Sunday, January 24, 2016 at a random time.

_______________

It’s Edwardian Ball time again, and as always, it’s a great pleasure to work with Justin Katz, the Edwardian Ball impresario, and once again I had a lot of fun making this poster!

My Edwardian Ball posters always have an edge of social critique in them. They are done with a wink and a nod, in keeping with the enjoyment of attending such an elaborate period pageant.

Most of the attendees also realize that the Edwardian era was one of unabashed and ostentatious oligarchy, unrivaled economic imperialism and a presumed European superiority complex. It’s all of these things that makes the period so bizarre to us today. I’ve always endeavored to reveal this outrageous and bizarre sense of imperial entitlement in my Edwardian Ball posters, and keep them wild and fun.

This year I’ve depicted Russian mega-oligarchs, Tsar & Tsarina, Nicholas and Alexandra. 100 years ago, they had one good year left before the Communists swept them away. We find them, lounging in state dinner attire, a pair of rare white tigers settled at their feet. The background is Rosslyn Chapel. The Russian says, “Tsar, have a nice trip! See ya next Fall!”

Filed Under: Event Posters, Events Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, Edwardian Ball

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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…

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  • Sperry Art Shows in France in June and July
  • “Syrinx” Variant Edition Release on May 3
  • “Sappho” Variant Edition Release on May 1
  • Photo Story: Opening Weekend “Color x Color” at Fort Wayne Museum of Art
  • “Color x Color” Chuck Sperry Retrospective at Fort Wayne Museum of Art until July

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