Chuck Sperry

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  • Books: Color x Color • Helikon • Chthoneon

February 7, 2020 By squirt

Father of Rock Posters, Psychedelic Master, Rest In Peace Wes Wilson

San Francisco Chronicle • January 30, 2020 • by Aidin Vaziri
/  SFMOMA • Twitter • January 29, 2020

Filed Under: Press & Reviews Tagged With: Chuck Sperry, San Francisco Chronicle, SFMOMA, Wes Wilson

January 31, 2019 By squirt

Chuck Sperry x Pangea Seed: “The Diver” Art Print

Chuck-Sperry-Pangea-Seed

The Diver 2019
16 x 35
Edition of 125
7 colors on cream paper
Signed and Numbered
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Chuck-Sperry-Pangea-Seed
The Diver 2019
16 x 35
Silver Edition of 25
7 colors on silver metallic paper
Signed and Numbered
_______________
Chuck-Sperry-Pangea-Seed
The Diver 2019
16 x 35
Gold Edition of 25
7 colors on gold metallic paper
Signed and Numbered
_______________
PangeaSeed Foundation and artist Chuck Sperry are pleased to announce – a fine art print to help save our seas. This limited edition will be released Thursday, February 7, 2019 at 12pm PST via shop.PangeaSeed.org – limit one print per household.
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My print for PangeaSeed Foundation, “The Diver”, is a celebration of the beauty of the ocean environment and our inter-connected place in it.We are oxygen breathing animals, and we live on land. “The Diver” is leaving her natural habitat to enter a watery world, where she can not survive long for lack of air; there she is surrounded by the beauty and danger of the seas. She is also surrounded by the essence of her life on land.

“The Diver” plunges into the beautiful ocean surrounded by myriad air bubbles. Our ocean environment plays a crucial role in the generation of the majority of Earth’s life-sustaining air. We could not live on land and breathe fresh air without the world’s oceans. 70% of Earth’s oxygen comes from marine plants in our ocean environments. Heat driven loss of ocean oxygen is one of the leading threats to the delicate world biome posed by Climate Change.

It’s clearly time to act. Please be mindful and give your care to the environment. It’s time to do what you can to become a good steward of the environment. I am always happy to contribute my time and energy to PangeaSeed Foundation! Their efforts in helping to save the oceans, thru art and activism, deserve our support and good energies!

I noted in the credit line of my poster: “After Alfred Roller.” The figure of the diver in my print is influenced by a figure in the work of Vienna Secessionist artist Alfred Roller, the brilliant early 20th Century graphic stylist and inventor of the free, flowing typographical fonts that inspired artist Wes Wilson to create psychedelic lettering in the 1960’s.

Read more about the role oceans play in creating the air we breathe:
When a Killer Climate Catastrophe Struck the World’s Oceans

And visit PangeaSeed.org to learn how you can help save our oceans.
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Filed Under: Art Prints Tagged With: Alfred Roller, Chuck Sperry, Climate Change, Pangea Seed, Vienna Secession, Wes Wilson

August 24, 2018 By squirt

“Litmus Test” Exhibition at Fort Wayne Museum of Art on September 14

Litmus Test: Works on Paper from the Psychedelic Era

Fort Wayne Museum of Art

Exhibition Opening Party: September 14, 6-9pm

September 15 – December 9, 2018

The Psychedelic Era was, among many things, a cultural frontier for colors and imagery. Music, politics, and drugs ignited an unprecedented expansion of art revolving around these elements. College campuses around the country, now seen as the birthing grounds for much of the psychedelic era’s ideals, were hotbeds for bright young minds to organize politically and artistically. From Berkeley College to the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, young idealists organized and the art of the era came to fruition. This exhibition will be our bridge to that time, showcasing a variety of psychedelic era works on paper.

Highlighting this experience is the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, Michigan. The poster work and ephemera of Gary Grimshaw and the photography of Leni Sinclair will showcase the art that poured out of that time and place. Blotter sheets from Mark Mothersbaugh, H.R. Giger, S. Clay Wilson, Chuck Sperry, and more will represent the creative fuel for many of the artists of the time. Also featured will be the work of the poster artists of the time: Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, Rick Griffin, and Alton Kelley. Lastly works by artists Alex and Allyson Grey and Isaac Abrams will display the fine art guided and influenced by the era and movement.

Exhibition Opening Party: September 14, 6-9pm

Celebrate opening weekend of this exhibit and Litmus Test: Works on Paper from the Psychedelic Era with live music, cash bar, appetizers, with many of the artists in attendance!

This exhibition is curated by independent curator and critic Carlo McCormick and FWMoA Curator of Contemporary Art Josef Zimmerman.

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Alton Kelley, Chuck Sperry, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Gary Grimshaw, H.R. Giger, Isaac Abrams, Leni Sinclair, Mark Mothersbaugh, Rick Griffin, S. Clay Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson

June 23, 2018 By squirt

Chuck Sperry in “Litmus Test” Exhibition at Fort Wayne Museum of Art in September

Litmus Test: Works on Paper from the Psychedelic Era

Fort Wayne Museum of Art

September 15 – December 9, 2018

The Psychedelic Era was, among many things, a cultural frontier for colors and imagery. Music, politics, and drugs ignited an unprecedented expansion of art revolving around these elements. College campuses around the country, now seen as the birthing grounds for much of the psychedelic era’s ideals, were hotbeds for bright young minds to organize politically and artistically. From Berkeley College to the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, young idealists organized and the art of the era came to fruition. This exhibition will be our bridge to that time, showcasing a variety of psychedelic era works on paper.

Highlighting this experience is the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, Michigan.  The poster work and ephemera of Gary Grimshaw and the photography of Leni Sinclair will showcase the art that poured out of that time and place. Blotter sheets from Mark Mothersbaugh, H.R. Giger, S. Clay Wilson, Chuck Sperry, and more will represent the creative fuel for many of the artists of the time. Also featured will be the work of the poster artists of the time: Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, Rick Griffin, and Alton Kelley. Lastly works by artists Alex and Allyson Grey and Isaac Abrams will display the fine art guided and influenced by the era and movement.

Exhibition Opening Party: September 14, 6-9pm

Celebrate opening weekend of this exhibit and Litmus Test: Works on Paper from the Psychedelic Era with live music, cash bar, appetizers, with many of the artists in attendance!

This exhibition is curated by independent curator and critic Carlo McCormick and FWMoA Curator of Contemporary Art Josef Zimmerman.

Filed Under: Art Prints, Events, News Tagged With: Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Alton Kelley, Chuck Sperry, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Gary Grimshaw, H.R. Giger, Isaac Abrams, Leni Sinclair, Mark Mothersbaugh, Rick Griffin, S. Clay Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson

October 15, 2016 By squirt

The Rock Poster Society • Festival of Posters 2016

chuck-sperry-portrait
Photo credit: Bless Hyperion

screen-shot-2016-10-14-at-6-04-06-pm

The first time Chuck Sperry saw a psychedelic rock poster he was 5 or 6 and had mustered up the nerve to climb the attic stairs into his big brother’s bedroom.

There, pinned to the wall, was a drawing of a fat prop plane with umbrellas. He studied the lettering, then sneaked back up a second time until he could finally make out the words, “Jefferson Airplane, an Ectodelic Trip, Civic Auditorium Dance, June 4, 9-1, $2.25.”

“I remember staring at that poster in the late 60’s while my brother Jody and I recorded The Who’s Tommy in its entirety on a reel-to-reel tape recorder,” said Sperry laughing.

airplane-poster

Sperry followed that poster to Haight-Ashbury, where he found love, an amazing apartment and the charmed life of a poster artist.

He timed it just right to have been selected by art director Arelene Owseichik to join Bill Graham Presents’ “New Fillmore Series” of posters in 1994. His career spanning 500+ handmade, limited edition, screen printed Rock Posters and art prints – not to mention 200+ art shows in over a dozen countries – has not slowed since then.

In fact, Sperry’s career is speeding up; He will have a solo exhibition in New York City at Spoke Art Gallery on November 19, 2016. There he will present his newest wood panels and archived classic rock posters and art prints. He will also present his newest book, “Helikon, The Muses of Chuck Sperry” devoted entirely to his screenprint on wood panels.

vivien-chuck-sperry

“Recently I had the great honor to make five posters – over the last year – for The Who. They gave me massive props by showing my posters on the huge stadium stage screen before and after their concerts. When I saw them in Oakland this year, I thought about my brother and me in 1969 in his room under that Jefferson Airplane poster.”

the-who-oakland-chuck-sperry

On Saturday, Oct. 22, Sperry’s art will proudly be on display at the Festival of Rock Posters in the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.

The Festival, put on by the nonprofit all-volunteer Rock Poster Society, is a highly anticipated annual art event. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the invention of the psychedelic rock poster. To honor this important milestone, artists, dealers, and collectors are coming from around the country, to create one of the largest TRPS events to date.

“The psychedelic style stood out from everything else,” says Sperry, now 54, and still a resident of that same apartment in The Haight.

Sperry has lived in The Haight for 26 years, and has worked as an artist for all that time. He’s made shows from Buenos Aires to Paris, Athens to Japan. His art is in the permanent collections of many prominent museums as well as The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He owns an art studio/gallery in West Oakland where he regularly hosts very well-attended art shows and open houses. Presently he is working on a series of four Jerry Garcia portraits for the Garcia family’s foundation, which collectors are avidly awaiting.

jerry-web

“Wes Wilson did a series of 10 or 12 posters that ignited all of these other artists to get started,” Sperry says. “Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley,Victor Moscoso, and Rick Griffin were breaking all the printing rules by putting colors like red and blue next to each other, which vibrated the eye. You had to be hip in order to even read the posters. It was really a revolutionary artistic statement.”

According to Ben Marks, vice president of the Rock Poster Society, the style for psychedelic rock posters can be traced to that most un-psychedelic of bands, the Association, singing “Windy” and “Cherish”. It was drawn by Wilson using flames for lettering. If you’ve taken a course in hippie hieroglyphics you can make out the words “July 22-23, Fillmore Auditorium.”’

SONY DSC

“San Francisco’s Psychedelic style completely changed graphic aesthetics around the world,” says Sperry. The 50th anniversary of the Human Be-In is Jan. 14, and that will launch a year of tributes to the Summer of Love. Posters from the Be-In, and other Summer of Love shows will be at the Hall of Flowers and so will three of the artists, Moscoso, Mouse and Wilson, signing posters. Also there, will be Emek and Gary Houston from Portland, Jim Pollock from Chicago, Mark Arminski from Detroit, and Sperry.

Admission fee will decrease as the day goes on. Get there at 10 a.m. and it is $20. At 11 a.m. it drops to $10 and after 3 p.m. it is free. The risk in waiting is that the good stuff may already be gone. The line is expected to form at dawn, with people in lawn chairs.

Last year, Sperry was able to find a mint-condition tour program from the Grateful Dead tour of Egypt, in 1978, for $100. The artist, Mouse, signed it for him, and Chuck was stoked.

“The collectors are so fervent that they want to get their hands on these limited edition posters first thing in the morning,” says Sperry. “We’re talking about a tradition that started in 1966, and there is still this great enthusiasm!”

Festival of Rock Posters: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22 at the Hall of Flowers, Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way, Golden Gate Park. Admission: $5 for members. For non-members $20 at 10 a.m., $10 at 11 a.m., free after 3 p.m. trps.org

WIDESPREAD-PANIC-CHUCK-SPERRYChuck-Sperry-Dave-MatthewsMORGANA WEB

Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit, Port Chester & NYC - Crystal Skull Edition of 25Pearl Jam April 9, 2016 Miami, FL poster by Chuck SperryPETE-SPARKLE

Black Sabbath “The End” Tour at Madison Square Garden NYC rock poster by Chuck SperryThe Art of Musical Maintenance 12 event poster by Chuck Sperry - Black Satin Edition of 7

SPERRY-PANIC-WEBWIDESPREAD-PANIC-LAVA-SPERRY

WEB BEATLE BLOTTER - JOHNWEB BEATLE BLOTTER - PAUL

WEB BEATLE BLOTTER - GEORGEWEB BEATLE BLOTTER - RINGO FIXXED

 

dryad-web

Filed Under: News, Press & Reviews Tagged With: Arlene Owseichik, Bill Graham, EMEK, Festival of Rock Posters 2016, Gary Houston, Jim Pollock, Mark Arminski, SFGate, Spoke Art, Stanley Mouse, The Rock Poster Society, Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson

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Latest News

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

Latest Blog Posts

  • 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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