Monday, March 15, 2010

IAN rick griffin/posteriseation!



Rick Griffin, born in California, in 1944, was a major influence on poster design. In the 50's Rick worked on friends t-shirts, and later hot rods & motorcycles. Rick worked as an artist at Surfer Magazine until 1964. At Surfer Magazine hecreated the character of Murphy, whose impact on the surf scene at the time should not be underestimated.
Rick's first San Francisco rock poster was for the Jook Savages Art Show. He then produced the poster for the Human Be-In in 1967 in Golden Gate Park, advertised as the "Gathering Of Tribes", showing a guitar toting Indian on horseback. It was this event that kicked off the Summer of Love. As the Haight-Ashbury scene developed, Rick's work was in high demand. Drawing on influences as diverse as Native American culture, the Californian surf scene and of course, the burgeoning hippie movement, he incorporated beetles, skulls, surfing eyeballs, vivid colours and wild lettering into his art.
Rick produced a series of seminal posters for Chet Helms, a producer of The Family Dog collective, and Bill Graham, who staged events at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium respectively. He made posters for legends such as Hendrix, Albert King and the Grateful Dead, the logo for Rolling Stones magazine, and many album sleeves; perhaps the most well known being the Dead's Aoxomoxoa.
Rick became known as one of the "Big Five" of psychedelia. In 1967 produce and sell psychedelic poster art.
His work can be found in Zap, Snatch and Tales From The Tube.
John Severson asked him to design a poster for his latest film Pacific Vibrations, and to appear in it. Months later Severson was presented with a masterwork. Rick and Ida's daughter Adelia was born whilst Rick was working on the piece and both mother and unborn child are featured in the poster.
He died in 1991 from injuries he suffered from an accident while riding his Harley-Davidson.
www.myraltis.co.uk/rickgriffin
www.wolfgangsvault.com
www.surfclassics.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.rickgriffinink.com
theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com

1 comment:

  1. great read ian and excellent examples of his work used

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