The Artists
The psychedelic poster movement that emerged in San Francisco between 1966 and 1969 was one of the most original and influential art movements of the twentieth century. At its center were five remarkable artists—Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso, and Rick Griffin—who came to be known collectively as the Big Five.
Working independently and, at times, collaboratively, these artists transformed the humble concert poster into a new form of visual expression. Wes Wilson pioneered the flowing, organic letterforms that became synonymous with the psychedelic aesthetic. Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley forged one of the most celebrated creative partnerships of the era. Victor Moscoso brought a sophisticated understanding of color theory that challenged viewers' perceptions, while Rick Griffin infused the movement with imagery drawn from surfing, comics, and mysticism.
By the summer of 1966, audiences were no longer treating the posters as disposable advertising. They were tearing them from telephone poles, collecting them, and hanging them on their walls. Recognizing that something extraordinary was taking place, galleries began exhibiting the work while the movement was still unfolding. The landmark Joint Show at San Francisco's Moore Gallery marked one of the first public acknowledgments that these concert posters were fine art.
Although the Big Five remain the movement's best-known figures, they were part of a larger creative community. Artists including Bonnie MacLean, Lee Conklin, David Singer, Randy Tuten, Bob Schnepf, Robert Fried, Jim Blashfield, Greg Irons, and others expanded the movement's visual vocabulary and helped carry it into the years that followed.
The artists featured here represent not only individual talents, but a collaborative community whose work forever changed the relationship between art, music, and popular culture.
The Big Five: Photo © Estate of Bob Seidemann - Inquiries: artplane@gmail.com
Wes Wilson
1937 - 2020
Graphic artist Wes Wilson pioneered the rock concert poster aesthetic of the late 1960s, translating the sights and sounds of San Francisco's counterculture into the psychedelic imagery that endures today. Because virtually every Fillmore and Avalon Ballroom poster through June 1966 was created by Wilson, he is widely regarded as the founding father of the psychedelic poster movement.
Working at a small San Francisco print shop when the scene exploded in January 1966, Wilson found inspiration in the music, energy, and experimentation of the city's emerging counterculture. He revolutionized poster design with his distinctive "psychedelic" lettering—letters that seemed to melt, flow, and merge into the surrounding artwork that was inspired by the Viennese Secessionist typography of Alfred Roller. Wilson was also influenced by Art Nouveau masters like Alphonse Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley, and Gustav Klimt, he transformed concert posters from simple advertisements into bold works of art.
Art Nouveau-inspired figures and lettering, stylized almost to the point of illegibility, flowed together in a single, integrated design. The playful use of colors, according to Wilson, was dictated by his own visual experiences with psychedelic drugs. His creations were more than just announcements of who was playing on a given evening, but bold visual chromatic statements.
Stanley Mouse
1937 -
Stanley Mouse—born Stanley George Miller in 1940—was one of the defining artists of San Francisco’s psychedelic poster movement. Raised in Detroit, Mouse developed his distinctive visual style through the world of custom cars and hot rods, working with legendary artist Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and creating the fantastical monster characters that would become an important part of his artistic vocabulary. In 1965, he traveled to San Francisco and soon met Alton Kelley. The two began collaborating on posters for Chet Helms and the Family Dog’s concerts at the Avalon Ballroom, and their partnership would become one of the most important creative forces of the psychedelic era.
Mouse and Kelley combined the ornate influences of Art Nouveau artists such as Alphonse Mucha with the strange, fantastical imagery of the counterculture. Their posters for the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and other San Francisco bands were filled with skeletons, monsters, flowers, lettering, and other surreal imagery. In 1967, Mouse joined Kelley, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, and Wes Wilson in forming the Berkeley Bonaparte Distribution Agency, an effort to promote and distribute the work of the emerging psychedelic poster artists. Mouse and Kelley later formed Mouse Studios and The Monster Company, extending their visual language into album covers, merchandise, and commercial art.
Perhaps Mouse and Kelley’s most enduring creation was the Grateful Dead’s iconic skeleton-and-roses imagery. As Mouse recalled, he and Kelley were searching for inspiration at the San Francisco Public Library in 1966 when they discovered an illustration in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Kelley immediately recognized its potential, asking, “Is that the Grateful Dead or is that the Grateful Dead?” The image became the inspiration for one of rock music’s most recognizable visual identities. Mouse continued creating art for the Grateful Dead, Journey, and other musicians for decades, eventually turning increasingly toward fine art. He continues to paint in Sonoma County, California.
Alton Kelley
1940 - 2008
Although not known for the technical drawing ability of some of his contemporaries, Alton Kelley was one of the principal creative architects of San Francisco's psychedelic poster movement. A gifted designer with an exceptional eye for imagery and composition, he helped shape the visual language of an era.
Born in Houlton, Maine, Kelley was one of the founders of the Family Dog, the collective that organized San Francisco's first psychedelic dance concerts in 1965. He designed the flyers for those groundbreaking events before forming Mouse Studios with Stanley Mouse in 1966. Their partnership produced dozens and dozens of classic concert posters for the Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore Auditorium, and other venues, including the celebrated "Skull and Roses" poster for the Grateful Dead.
Kelley and Mouse drew inspiration from every imaginable source—Art Nouveau, American Indian art, Chinese graphics, Art Deco, Bauhaus, and countless books they discovered in the San Francisco Public Library. Given complete artistic freedom, they transformed concert advertising into an entirely new art form, creating bold, unforgettable images that remain among the defining symbols of the Summer of Love and the psychedelic era.
Victor Moscoso
1936 -
Born in Oleiros, Galicia, Spain, Victor Moscoso emigrated with his family to Brooklyn at the age of four. After studying at Cooper Union, Yale, and the San Francisco Art Institute—where he later taught—Moscoso became the first of the San Francisco rock poster artists with formal academic training in art and design.
Initially hesitant to embrace the emerging psychedelic poster style, Moscoso soon realized that the conventions of traditional graphic design had to be abandoned. Rather than making posters instantly readable, the goal was to draw viewers into the image, rewarding them as they gradually deciphered its message. Applying his deep understanding of color theory, he pioneered the use of intensely vibrating color combinations and intricate positive and negative overlays that gave his posters an almost animated quality.
While Moscoso created more than 25 posters for the Avalon, he was the first of the "Big Five" to create his own poster series, Neon Rose, produced for The Matrix nightclub leading up to the Summer of Love in 1967. He was also the first of the San Francisco poster artists to have his work exhibited by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Today, his work is represented in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Library of Congress, and museums around the world.
Rick Griffin
1944 - 1991
Born Richard Alden Griffin in Southern California, Rick Griffin first gained recognition as a cartoonist and illustrator for Surfer magazine, where he created the popular character Murph. Deeply influenced by surfing, hot rod culture, and the irreverent humor and graphic style of Mad magazine, he brought a uniquely California sensibility to the emerging psychedelic poster movement.
After arriving in San Francisco in late 1966, Griffin quickly became one of the leading artists of the psychedelic poster era. He designed one of the two posters for the landmark Human Be-In in January 1967 before creating a remarkable series of concert posters for the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore. Drawing on influences as diverse as Native American imagery, surf culture, religion, and the counterculture, his work combined vivid colors, skulls, insects, and his iconic "Flying Eyeball" into a visual style unlike any other. Griffin's elaborate, three-dimensional lettering often required time and patience to decipher. In some posters, he went even further, abandoning conventional letterforms altogether and constructing words from abstract shapes that only suggested letters. His experimental typography anticipated many of the visual ideas later explored in graffiti art during the 1980s.
Beyond concert posters, Griffin designed the original Rolling Stone logo and numerous album covers, most notably the Grateful Dead's Aoxomoxoa. After returning to Southern California, he later became a born-again Christian, producing both religious art and commercial work until his tragic death in a motorcycle accident in 1991.
Bonnie MacLean
1939 - 2020
Bonnie MacLean moved to San Francisco in 1963, where she met Bill Graham while working in the same office. When Graham became the promoter of the Fillmore Auditorium, MacLean painted the venue's noticeboards in the emerging psychedelic style, revealing a talent that would soon launch her career.
After Wes Wilson left the Fillmore in 1966 following a dispute with Graham, MacLean stepped into the role of Art Director. She went on to create more than 30 concert posters, most during 1967, that rank among the finest examples of psychedelic poster art. Although initially influenced by Wilson's Art Nouveau-inspired style, she quickly developed a distinctive visual language of her own, combining elegant figures, expressive faces, flowing lettering, and subtle Gothic influences.
While not traditionally counted among San Francisco's "Big Five" poster artists, MacLean was one of the few women working in the field and earned a place alongside the movement's leading talents. Today, her posters are among the most admired and sought-after works of the psychedelic era.
Lee Conklin
1941 -
Born in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Lee Conklin studied art before serving a tour of duty in Korea. Drawn by the excitement surrounding San Francisco's psychedelic music scene, he arrived in the city in 1967 and showed his portfolio to Bill Graham, who immediately hired him to design a Fillmore poster that very weekend. Conklin went on to create 33 posters for the Fillmore.
Conklin's work is distinguished by its extraordinary intricacy. His graphics and calligraphy merge into densely detailed compositions in which figures become letters and letters become figures, challenging viewers to discover hidden images within the design. His masterpiece, the Santana Lion poster of 1968, is widely regarded as one of the greatest achievements of psychedelic poster art and remains among the most celebrated and collectible concert posters ever produced.
Although he arrived after the original "Big Five," Conklin's imagination, technical brilliance, and unmistakable visual style secured his place among the leading artists of the San Francisco psychedelic poster movement.
David Singer
1941 -
Best known for his surrealistic collage illustrations, David Singer designed 66 posters for Bill Graham between 1969 and 1971, making him one of the most prolific artists of the Fillmore's later years. Although largely self-taught, his polished craftsmanship and inventive compositions earned him a reputation as one of San Francisco's most respected poster artists.
After serving in the U.S. Navy and settling in San Francisco, Singer taught himself the art of collage using thousands of magazine images he had collected over the years. Encouraged by Victor Moscoso, he showed his portfolio to Bill Graham, who immediately commissioned him to produce a series of concert posters.
Influenced by the Surrealist collages of Max Ernst and René Magritte, Singer combined meticulously assembled imagery with elegant Art Deco-inspired lettering. His sophisticated style marked a departure from the exuberant psychedelia of the late 1960s and helped define the cleaner, more refined look of rock poster art in the 1970s.
Randy Tuten
1946 -
A self-taught artist from Southern California, Randy Tuten was inspired by surfing, cartooning, and the San Francisco poster movement before moving to the city in 1967. After working as a freelance graphic designer, he joined Bill Graham's poster artist rotation in 1969.
Unlike the earlier psychedelic artists, Tuten favored clear typography, strong draftsmanship, and straightforward imagery influenced by vintage American advertising and product labels. Fascinated by trains, ships, airplanes, and classic automobiles, he often incorporated mechanical and industrial imagery into his posters. His clean compositions and bold – but legible - lettering also reflected the influence of classic Hollywood movie posters, giving his work a timeless graphic appeal that anticipated the changing style of rock poster art in the 1970s.
Bob Schnepf
1937 -
Bob Schnepf studied at New York City's High School of Industrial Art and Cooper Union before earning a B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute. A commercial artist and illustrator, he produced artwork for the Berkeley Barb, the San Francisco Oracle, and other underground publications while designing psychedelic postcards and posters for the Haight-Ashbury scene. His celebrated Summer of Love poster, commissioned by Psychedelic Shop co-founder Ron Thelin in 1967, became one of the iconic images of the era. Schnepf also created a series of concert posters for Chet Helms and the Avalon Ballroom, earning a respected place among the second generation of San Francisco psychedelic poster artists.
Jim Blashfield
1944 -
Jim Blashfield arrived in San Francisco just before the Summer of Love in 1967, where he was captivated by the revolutionary concert posters of Wes Wilson and the emerging psychedelic art movement. Encouraged by his next-door neighbor Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady, Blashfield showed his drawings to Bill Graham shortly after Wilson left the Fillmore in May, and was soon commissioned to create 7 memorable posters for Fillmore producer Bill Graham.
Robert Fried
1937 - 1975
Although not one of the San Francisco School's "Big Five," Robert Fried brought a distinctive modernist sensibility to psychedelic poster art. Formally trained at Pratt Institute and Cooper Union, he also studied at the San Francisco Art Institute after receiving a Fulbright scholarship to Spain.
Between 1967 and 1970, Fried created 18 concert posters for the Fillmore, Avalon Ballroom, and other venues. Unlike many of his contemporaries, his work emphasized geometry, color, and spatial illusion over ornate illustration, seeking to evoke the altered perceptions of the psychedelic experience itself. His precise, elegant designs remain among the most sophisticated works of the era.
As the demand for concert posters declined, Fried turned to painting and printmaking before his career was cut short by a stroke in 1975.
Greg Irons
1947 - 1984
A self-taught artist influenced by MAD magazine, Greg Irons moved to San Francisco in 1967, where he created concert posters for the Fillmore, California Hall, and the Avalon. His highly detailed, cartoon-inspired illustrations, packed with exaggerated characters, intricate linework, and dark humor, gave his posters a distinctive visual energy unlike that of his contemporaries.
Irons later worked in London on the animated Beatles film Yellow Submarine before returning to San Francisco in 1969 to produce additional posters for the Fillmore West and Winterland. He went on to design album covers and became an important contributor to the underground comix movement, illustrating titles including Heavy, Yellow Dog, and collaborations with writer Tom Veitch. He then moved on and became a talented tattoo artist before dying tragically in Bangkok in 1984.
Norman Orr
1949 -
Inspired by the psychedelic posters of Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, and Alton Kelley while still in high school, Norman Orr achieved a childhood dream when Bill Graham hired him to design Fillmore posters in 1970. Although he arrived after the classic Summer of Love period, Orr became one of the youngest artists to contribute to the legendary Fillmore series, ultimately creating a dozen posters for Graham.
John Van Hamersveld
1941 -
Although based in Los Angeles, John Van Hamersveld was one of the leading graphic artists of the late 1960s. Best known for designing the iconic Endless Summer movie poster in 1964 and the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album cover (among 300 others), he also created concert posters for Pinnacle Productions. A close personal friend of fellow surfer Rick griffin from an early age, he maintained close ties with the San Francisco artists and visited often. Van Hamersveld commissioned both Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin to design posters for his Los Angeles concert series, helping to spread the psychedelic poster aesthetic beyond San Francisco.
Roger Dean
1944 -
British artist Roger Dean is internationally celebrated for his dreamlike landscapes and album cover designs for bands including Yes, Asia, Uriah Heep, and Greenslade. Although he was not part of the San Francisco psychedelic poster movement, Dean has acknowledged the profound influence of Rick Griffin's work on his own artistic development. His appearance in the film underscores the international impact of the San Francisco artists, whose revolutionary imagery inspired a generation of designers and illustrators far beyond California.
A feature-length documentary on San Francisco's Big Five and the psychedelic poster revolution.
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