Name that Poster! It’s Harder than it Looks: Part II
Aug 1st, 2018 by houghtonmodern
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring recently cataloged items from the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library. Thanks to Rachel Parker, Archival Assistant, for contributing this post.
In my first blog post on the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library poster collection, I demonstrated why maintaining context can help answer the questions that arise when titling posters for catalog records or finding aids. In this post I am going to present two examples from the LSD Library poster collection which demonstrate issues of complex text-image relationships, and the unique challenges of counterculture era ephemera. The examples below are all about copies, copies with different titles, copies with different visual styles, copies with different distributors, and “stolen” images.
The first example is a print by the artist and illustrator Rick Griffin. The first (of which there are two versions in the LSD collection) was printed by the San Francisco artist collective Berkeley Bonaparte in 1967 and is untitled (left). The second image is a silkscreen blacklight poster printed by Royal Screen Craft Inc. and distributed by Cocorico Graphics with the caption “San Mezcalito, the patron and protector of all those souls who dig herbs created by god to enlighten the minds of men” (right). To solve the problem of two different titles, I added a related materials note for all three versions of this print to the finding aid.
However, the relationship between these prints is left to the researcher to suss out. Berkeley Bonaparte was famous in its own right — what relationship did they have with Cocorico Graphics? Although some websites call the 1967 printing “Mezcalito man” there is no evidence that that was Griffin’s title. Blacklight posters also had a distinct purpose. Even though both posters are clearly drug related, the blacklight poster has an implicit relationship to LSD and a popular visual movement of the ‘70s which had become independent from the psychedelic rock scene it originated from. These copies, while the same image, exist in different decades, and different cultural significance. A persistent problem with cataloging posters is capturing this visual information, often implied and emblematic of a cultural movement. The best way to capture this information, barring including an image, is by providing as much publishing data as possible and recording the printing method. Luckily, images of each poster will be added to the finding aid in this case.
My second example of catalog/archival description in this collection is a Family Dog print. The Family Dog were psychedelic rock promoters in San Francisco who hired “The San Francisco Five,” a group of five poster artists who virtually defined the psychedelic art style in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The artists were Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, and Wes Wilson. This print is for a Family Dog production at the Avalon Ballroom and was printed by Mouse Studios (Kelley and Mouse). One is an artist proof signed by Mouse (left) and the other is signed by both Mouse and Kelley, printed by Mouse and hand colored by Kelley (right). All relatively simple information to convey in the description (barring any particular graphic difference); however, we’re missing one key fact: Mouse and Kelley handily repurposed this image from an 1896 Alphonse Mucha advertisement for JOB cigarette rolling papers [1]:
Mucha is also represented in the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library poster collection elsewhere (so are JOB cigarette rolling papers) and was a pioneer Art Nouveau artist. So is the Jim Kweskin Jug band event poster actually telling a story about Kelley and Mouse as artists and about the psychedelic art movement as a whole? As it happens this disconnect between image and text was deliberate. Chet Helms, founder of the Family Dog, instructed his artists to pair images and event information that had little relation. Helms wanted the posters to convey a sense of atmosphere, often using images which tied the Psychedelic Rock posters to the peace movement. [2]
It is a luxury to catalog almost 780 posters in this collection at the item level, describing every single item in the collection rather than describing groups or series of items. But perhaps it is the only way to truly give access to them. Posters can tell so many different textual and visual stories all at once. They are designed to be seen from a distance and understood by the masses at a glance, making visual cues just as important as title information. As I’ve shown, a poster can tell the story of an entire movement while promoting a single band. Context is key, then, when formulating titles in catalog records.
Image 1: Untitled : Native American man, distributed by Berkeley Bonaparte, artwork by Rick Griffin : lithograph poster, 1967. MS Am 3135. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/ead/c/hou02925c01304/catalog
Image 2: San Mezcalito, the patron and protector of all those souls who dig herbs created by god to enlighten the minds of men. Silk screen by Royal Screen Craft Inc., Cocorico Graphics, artwork by Rick Griffin : blacklight poster, undated. MS Am 3135. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/ead/c/hou02925c01263/catalog
Image 3: Family dog presents Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Electric Train, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Avalon ballroom. Design by Mouse Studios : lithograph poster, undated. MS Am 3135. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/ead/c/hou02925c01440/catalog
Image 4: Family dog presents Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Electric Train, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Avalon ballroom. Design by Mouse Studios, hand colored by Kelley : lithograph poster, undated. MS Am 3135. http://id.lib.harvard.edu/ead/c/hou02925c01441/catalog
[1] Not part of the poster collection. Image taken from: https://www.wikiart.org/en/alphonse-mucha/job-1896
[2] Eric King’s Guide to Psychedelic Rock Posters volume 1
read the blog posts of mezscalito man printing history on the well-informed 1960s poster website expressobeans
further down after the unrelated baseball card posters:
https://forum.expressobeans.com/viewtopic.php?t=4283&start=15
One most informative poster copied here:
“surfadelic Art Enthusiast Posts: 20
Fri Nov 06, 2009 8:45 pm
The black light / color version of the Huichol Indian poster was never authorized. Gordon McClelland told me he and Rick visited Colorico Graphics in Hollywood and inquired about this edition of his image, because Rick had not authorized its publication. The owner said they had recently bought the business and knew nothing about the production of the black light poster. The “San Mescalito” title, colors and the text on the black light edition was not the work of or authorized by Rick Griffin. Recent posts on ebay indicate there may have been more than one unauthorized printings / editions of the black light / colored version of this poster.
Gordon confirmed that Rick told him the first poster was printed on brown butcher paper in a small print run, and it may have “Oracle” printed on it. And there may have been several small runs of the second (BB) black ink on white paper edition that was sold in head shops. The third edition, brown ink on brown stock, was printed by Gordon for California Graphic Exchange in 1976, although it never appeared in their catalog. Rick thought it would be neat to print it on brown stock like the first edition. It was laid up and printed ganged with the 1977 Jesus surfing calendar that Rick gave away to fans on the European tour. Gordon told me the print run was 1000 posters, but about half of those were destroyed by a flood when Jose Kent had them.
In addition to The Oracle, the image appeared on the cover of the SF Examiner & Chronicle’s Sunday supplement This World (7/16/67) as well as on the back book cover of Great Poster Trip: Art Eureka Coyne & Blanchard (1968).
While the squatting male subject is clearly in a Mexican Huichol Indian costume, Ida Griffin told me that Ivan Strauss, the Griffin’s neighbor in San Francisco, posed for Rick’s Huichol Indian drawing. Rick had sketchbooks of his trips to Mexico, and he had drawn cartoon style Huichol Indian characters in his Griffin Stoner adventures in The Surfer Bi-monthly magazine (1967), but the elaborate and dense drawing seen in this poster matches, in my opinion, Can-A-Blis and A Puff of Kief more than the magazine work. For the record, it is clear then that the drawing for this poster was done in San Francisco in 1967, not in Mexico.
Ivan Strauss also collaborated with Rick on their poster Fly Jefferson Airplane at the Matrix , and is co-credited with Rick on that work. Gordon told me Rick greatly appreciated Mouse and Kelley’s partnership and was very willing to share credit and collaborate with others on projects.”
Friendly FYI,
W3