Chuck Sperry

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Release of Joy • Sperry Blotter Release on EQL

“Joy” 2024
Edition of 300
9 x 11.25
Vegetable based inks
80# unbleached cotton paper
BC Blotter Co.
Signed and Numbered

The Release of Joy • Online Release with EQL

The “Joy” blotter release for my retrospective “Home Show” was a big success at the opening. Now this blotter will be made available to my friends and supporters online through EQL!

I will make a limited online launch of my Joy blotter through EQL opening on Friday, November 1, 2024 at 9 am PST. The launch closes (the next day) on Saturday, November 2, 2024 at 9 am PST. The ballot will be open for 24 hours. As long as you enter during this timeframe, time of entry does not impact your chances of purchase.

There will be one live launch for the “Joy” blotter. You are free to register once for the launch. Multiple entries for the launch will be penalized. You may only win 1 blotter from the live launch within this 24 hour period. One per household.

Visit the launch page for the release (countdown and launch):

JOIN EQL RELEASE

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Opening Night “Home Show” at Haight Street Art Center in San Francisco

“Home Show, A Chuck Sperry Retrospective”
The Haight Street Art Center, San Francisco.
On view from October 17th through November 24, 2024.
Open: Thursday – Sunday, 12-6 pm.

Joy was the shared sentiment at “Home Show” at the Haight Street Art Center on Friday, October 18, 2024. Shaun Roberts captured the opening event in the following photos.

I would like to warmly thank all my friends and supporters who came from all over the country to the opening of my comprehensive San Francisco exhibition “Home Show, A Chuck Sperry Retrospective” hosted by HSAC. It was incredible to see so many friends, new and old, come together to share our outrageously successful & joyful event. Tickets sold out for the afternoon art releases, and even more supporters jammed into the Haight Street Art Center for the evening reception. The day and night at Haight Street Art Center was magic!

The Joy continued at TRPS Festival of Rock Posters at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park the following Saturday. Many thanks to The Rock Poster Society, friends, supporters and fellow artists for sharing a memorable day!

Monday we had a Joyful Ruckus at the “Ratified” screening at the Roxie with the support of Spoke Art. It was great to meet film director Deborah Riley Draper and meet again with ERA activist, ally and friend Kati Hornung. I would like to thank my friends and supporters for coming to support the ERA and this film documentation of the struggle for ERA.

A career retrospective takes a lot of people coming together to support one artist and his work. It’s mind-blowing the kind devotion I am privileged to have received to make this show happen. I am very grateful! 

Thanks to Curator Ben Marks for his vision and inspiration to make this retrospective, his tireless effort to bring my work together from many sources, focus its exhibition and its supporting texts, and organize all the moving parts in a year-long endeavor to share my work in its entirety to the world.

Thanks to Laurin & Steve Abramson for longtime support, friendship and lending countless gems for the exhibition. Many Thanks to Roger McNamee for lending many precious signature pieces to the exhibition. Thanks to Matthew Rick for lending art for the exhibition. Great Thanks to Fort Wayne Museum of Art Curator Josef Zimmerman for lending “Color x Color” documentary / art film to the exhibition.

Thanks to Executive Director Kelly Harris, Deputy Director Sarah Rosedale, Outreach Coordinator Emily Peterson, Brian Triffet Exhibition Designer, Rebecca Rippon of the Haight Street Center Printmaking Studio, and the kind, generous Haight Street Art Center Team!

Thanks to Brian Cox for the hard work helping me in the studio and in operations to make these beautiful ideas come to life as prints and in getting them to forever homes.

Thanks to Jon Greco, Robert Sommerfield, and Ron Epstein for their kind support, extra care of organized, flawless sales, and friendly-firm attendee management; your tireless efforts, kind support, and care is very appreciated!

Thanks to Meier Skis of Denver, CO for bringing together a fabulous Winter Lady ski and snowboard release, and a fine selection of my designs on craft skis and boards.

Thanks to Shaun Roberts for tirelessly documenting my prolific output and event schedule, always coming up with just the right images to tell the story.

Thanks to Linda Kelly for kind support and documenting the show in Haight Street Voice in the neighborhood and beyond.

In loving memory of my sister Tish, and in condolence to my brothers Jody and Rob. Tish’s creative spirit will live forever in our hearts.

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Sperry Weekend Events: “Home Show” Retrospective, TRPS, and “Ratified” at The Roxie

Home Show, A Chuck Sperry Retrospective, 2024
19 x 35
Edition of 300
7 colors on cream paper
Signed and numbered

Home Show: A Chuck Sperry Retrospective is opening this week! The exhibition includes rock posters, art prints on paper and wood, deep cuts from the artist’s 40-year career, and the West Coast premiere of several hand-woven tapestries. Running from October 17-November 24, 2024, the exhibition is Sperry’s most comprehensive exhibition since his Color x Color retrospective at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in 2022 and his first local exhibition since the acquisition last spring of four of his pieces by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, two of which were featured in Art of Noise this summer.

“Joy” 2024
Edition of 300
9 x 11.25
Vegetable based inks
80# unbleached cotton paper
BC Blotter Co.
Signed and Numbered

Joy, 2024
20 x 30
Edition of 30
Screen print on oak panel
Signed and numbered

Pneuma, 2024
30 x 20
Edition of 30
Screen print on oak panel
Signed and numbered

Check out all Chuck Sperry’s upcoming events below:

Friday, Oct. 18, 1 PM – 9 PM: Home Show: A Chuck Sperry Retrospective
Only a couple of tickets left to get a chance to purchase a piece of Chuck’s work yourself! Check out the ticket availability HERE! From 6-9 PM is a free opening reception for Home Show: A Chuck Sperry Retrospective. Join us in kicking off a poster-filled weekend!

Photo: Shaun Roberts

Saturday, Oct. 19, 10 AM-6 PM: TRPS Fes­ti­val of Rock Posters 2024
Chuck Sperry will concentrate on poster and print offerings at TRPS this year: he’ll have many surprises, rarities, variants, one-of-a-kind test prints, black & white tests, and blotters — from Pearl Jam to Panic — to offer exclusively at TRPS on Saturday, October 19, 2024! San Francisco’s annual Fall Clas­sic, the Rock Poster Society’s Fes­ti­val of Rock Posters 2024 is set to go for Sat­ur­day at the San Fran­cisco County Fair Build­ing (aka Hall of Flow­ers) in beau­ti­ful Golden Gate Park.

Ratified, 2024
21 x 31.5
Edition of 300
7 colors on cream paper
Signed and numbered

Monday, Oct. 21, 6-8 PM: RATIFIED new screen print by Chuck Sperry
A Film Showing of RATIFIED co-presented by Roxie Theater and Spoke Art. Featuring a new limited edition screen print by Chuck Sperry, part of the ongoing Spoke Art curated Roxie Theater poster series. Posters are only available on Monday, October 21. 

RATIFIED is a feature documentary about the 100-year struggle for constitutional gender equality. It’s an inspiring story of a multi-racial, multi-generational, bi-partisan effort to make Virginia the 38th and final state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. It’s also a story of how bureaucracy is used to stifle progress and takes a close look at the incredible perseverance of women – specifically, the Black women leaders who have taken their rightful place at the front of the movement for gender equality.

Tickets HERE

Deepak Puri & Forest Stearns in a post-screening discussion facilitated by RATIFIED subject, Kati Hornung.

Kati Hornung, Executive Director of VoteEquality
Kati advocates for an equality table so large every American can find a seat. Her gender equality advocacy work was memorialized in the movie RATIFIED, as the cameras followed the successful VAratifyERA campaign and later VoteEquality. Kati has a professional background in accounting and software consulting. Although initially involved in advocacy because of her oldest child’s interest, she rediscovered a passion for feminism that had been simmering on a back burner since childhood. Kati is very “task oriented” and the task she most wants to accomplish is the complete dismantling of systemic gender inequality. Step one: closing the equality gap in our Constitution.

Deepak Puri, Co-Founder of Democracy Labs
Deepak is the co-founder of Democracy Labs, a SF based non-profit that connects progressive groups with free and affordable solutions. DemLabs works closely with grassroots groups to identify their needs, finds the best solution to meet them, and then freely shares how to use those new tools through a free blog with over 1,900 case studies. Deepak is a Silicon Valley veteran with fifteen years of experience at Netscape, Oracle, and VMware.

Forest Stearns, Artist
Forest Stearns is the Principal Artist at DRAWEVERYWHERE LLC where he produces unique artwork and leads collaborations between artists and institutions. He has a passion for founding Artist in Residence programs that connect art, science, and technology. Currently he is the Creative Innovation Consultant and Artist in Residence co-founder at Google Quantum AI in Santa Barbara, CA. Stearns is an academically trained prolific illustrator, an arts educator, creative facilitator and community builder. Also an engaged father and supportive partner, he was one of twenty-eight artists who launched the national Artists4ERA collection in support of the VoteEquality campaign and the fully ratified Twenty-Eighth Amendment (Equal Rights).

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Sperry’s San Francisco Retrospective “Home Show” Ticket Info

Joy, 2024 • 20 x 30 • Edition of 30 • 7 colors on oak panel • Signed and Numbered

Home Show
A Chuck Sperry Retrospective

Haight Street Art Center
215 Haight St, San Francisco CA 94102

Hours: Thursday-Sunday, 12-6pm
October 17-November 24

Opening: Friday, October 18

Tickets available: Buy Tickets HERE

Available at the opening: 25 Archive panels, two new panel editions, new Home Show poster, new blotter edition, books, card sets and surprises!

The Haight Street Art Center is delighted to present Home Show: A Chuck Sperry Retrospective, an exhibition of rock-posters, art prints on paper and wood, deep cuts from the artist’s 40-year career, and the San Francisco premiere of a triptych of hand-woven tapestries.

Running from October 17 through November 24, 2024, with an opening reception on Friday October 18, the exhibition is Sperry’s most comprehensive exhibition since his Color x Color retrospective at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in 2022, and his first local exhibition since the acquisition last spring of four of his pieces by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, two of which were featured in Art of Noise exhibition this summer.

“The Graces” (from 2018-2020) stunning triptych of handwoven tapestries to debut in SF.

Sperry has redefined the concert poster medium since 1994. Emphasizing printing excellence, Sperry continually expands his vision with a panoply of neoclassical themes in his art work. Centering on a the expressive power of compositional rhythm, color and pattern — which unifies all his work — he employs ancient themes (contrasting them against contemporary events) to express his reaction to the tumultuous start of 21st Century, the assault on democracy, the struggle for equal rights and the erosion of truth and veracity. Sperry’s engaging approach has influenced many in both the poster and art worlds and has impacted the contemporary art scene worldwide.

The Home Show retrospective exhibition spans Sperry’s long and influential career, featuring new silkscreen prints from the artist’s ongoing “Muse” series, including a number of original ink drawings; a triptych of large format, handwoven tapestries; paintings; posters and art prints from his archive; and rarely seen works that illuminate his place in the art history of San Francisco and beyond.

“Pandora” (2007) One of 30+ original, rarely exhibited, Sperry brush-and-ink drawings to go on view.

 

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Chuck Sperry Retrospective at Haight Street Art Center in October

Photo: Shaun Roberts

Home Show: A Chuck Sperry Retrospective
Haight Street Art Center
215 Haight St, San Francisco
Hours: Thursday-Sunday, 12-6pm

October 17-November 24
Opening: Friday, October 18

Ticketing information to be announced soon.
Make sure to sign up for my mailing list to get all the latest news!

The Haight Street Art Center is delighted to present Home Show: A Chuck Sperry Retrospective, an exhibition of rock-posters, art prints on paper and wood, deep cuts from the artist’s 40-year career, and the San Francisco premiere of the several hand-woven tapestries. Running from October 17 through November 24, 2024, with an opening reception on Friday October 18, the exhibition is Sperry’s most comprehensive exhibition since his Color x Color retrospective at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in 2022, and his first local exhibition since the acquisition last spring of four of his pieces by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, two of which were featured in Art of Noise exhibition this summer.

Inspired by our human impulse to create, Home Show underscores what it means to be a maker in the 21st century, designing and producing work that straddles fine art, entertainment, and craftsmanship. The exhibition spans Sperry’s long and influential career, featuring new silkscreen prints from the artist’s ongoing “Muse” series and rare works, including a number of original pieces, from his archive.

Photo: Shaun Roberts

At a moment when algorithms and computers are increasingly being used to do creative work, what is the role of the artist or craftsperson? This question is personal for Sperry: as the design and production of cultural ephemera is increasingly automated or outsourced, his dedication to the craft of screen printing and the art of gig posters has become somewhat anomalous. Still, Sperry is confident that the human spark of creativity will persist. “Art made by humans for humans in physical reality is imbued with the soul of our humanity,” he says. “Our uniquely mortal heart and immortal spirit, drawn from our human culture, collective unconscious, and experience will transcend the current imperative for non-human and virtual intervention in the art space.”

Photo: Shaun Roberts

Drawing influence from the playwrights and poets of Classical Antiquity to the artist-designers of Art Nouveau, Sperry’s vivid, colorful screen prints merge the worlds of art, entertainment, and politics seamlessly, just as his predecessors did. Patterns of brightly colored foliage emanate from behind a woman’s head, her hair falling across her body or taken up by a gust of wind. Often, she looks directly at the viewer, standing in her power and control. Sperry’s muses carry names from Greek mythology, tracing their knowledge and image to the goddesses of art, science, and religion. This ongoing interest in ancient knowledge and texts such as the Orphic Hymns places Sperry’s practice of image-making into a long—and very human—lineage.

Archives

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

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