Category Archives: Art Posters

Art Posters, Music posters, Poster art, Rock Posters, Victor Moscoso

Victor Moscoso — Moscoso’s Cosmos: The Universe of Victor Moscoso. A New Exhibition Catalogue.

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As you probably know, Victor Moscoso is one of the Big Five San Francisco poster creators from the mid to late sixties along with Wes Wilson, Alton Kelley, Stanley Mouse and Rick Griffin. Their posters were a massive influence when I came to paint posters for my college at that time. I collected handbills and postcards of the posters for The Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom way back then and I still have forty-one of them (see my previous post to see them all), including seven by Victor Moscoso:

The seven Moscoso handbills in my collection.

I had record covers by Rick Griffin, Mouse and Kelley and Victor Moscoso. My favourite was The Steve Miller Band’s 1968 album Children of the Future, a gatefold cover designed by Moscoso. I lent the cover, along with about thirty others, to an exhibiiton of record cover art at Bildmuseet in Umeå in 1982 and the organisers chose to fix it to the wall with double-sided tape, which tore four one-inch squares off the cover when it was finally taken down. It took seven years to find a replacement mint copy.

Moscoso’s design for the imnner spread of the Children of the Future album cover.

Apart from the handbills, I had a couple of books by three of the Big Five. One of Stanley Mouse’s & Alton Kelley’s art and another with Rick Griffin’s.

Books of Alton Kelley’s & Stanley Mouse’s and Rick Griffin’s art.

So, when I heard that there was an exhibition of Victor Moscoso’s art in León, Spain, that runs from 13th November 2021 until 20th February 2022, called Moscoso Cosmos: The Visual Universe of Victor Moscoso, and that there was a lavish catalogue, I had to get hold of a copy.

The catalogue for the Moscoso Cosmos. the Visual Universe of Victor Moscoso.

This ain’t no puny thing either. It measure 32 x 24 cms (12.6 x 9.4 inches) and runs to 220 pages with 58 full-page prints of posters and artworks. It is a very welcome addition to my art library.

For anyone interested in poster art from the golden age of American psychedelia, there’s a Facebook group called Fillmore Poster Appreciation Society. Loads of beautiful posters are posted there and there’s loads of information about their creators and the various pressings of many. Even posters of British psychedelia poster artists turn up there. Martin Sharp, Hapshash & the Coloured Coat, Michael English and Nigel Weymouth (both separately from Hapshash). I can recommend a visit.

Art Posters, Sikscreening

What’s in a Name? My Latest Art Attempts.

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I spent three intensive days last week on a silkscreening course. I’ve been on several over the years but this time I had some ideas — a couple of friends are getting married later this month and I thought I could produce a portrait of them as a wedding present. In addition I had some unfinished paintings that I thought I could finish.

It turned out that I could do both in the fifteen hours that the course lasted.

First the wedding present. I had downloaded the couple’s portrait from one of their Facebook posts and edited the background out to leave just the couple seated together holding hands. I made two screens, one with the photo as originally taken with M seated on the left and a second with the picture reversed. I had previously prepared backgrounds on 300 g watercolour paper and simply screened the image onto the prepared backgrounds.

Wedding couple painting.

While I had the screen ready I decided to make a separate portrait for myself:
I screened a silver background and then screened the portrait on top.

Silver wedding

Then I had six portraits of Andy Warhol that I had painted some time ago and wanted to finish. Two were only in the early stages of production and had to be finished.

Then the series was complete:

And, I added diamond dust to make them sparkle!

We were four participants on the course and we had a discussion as to whether or not we should sign our work. The general consensus was “if one accepts ownership of the work, then it should be signed”.

Okay, then. But I don’t really think my name rings really ‘artistic’. I mean, not like Picasso or Cezanne or something catchy — even if my wife jokingly calls me the family Picasso! So I just put “Richard F ’20” on each picture.

Art Posters

My Poster Production.

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When I was in medical school from 1962 to 1968, I was involved in the Students’ Union and somehow got into a group responsible for organising student dances. These were the heady days of Swinging London, Carnaby Street and all things psychedelic and together with Andrew Batch, I started producing posters for dances, balls and many just for fun. Heavily influenced by American west coast art I painted many posters for dances we called “Inflam” as well as for lectures to be held in the hospital. There were several notice boards around the Guy’s Hospital campus and therefore four posters were required for each event. Many copies disappeared but I managed to save at least one copy of many of the posters, which have followed me around for the last fifty-plus years. For the past seven years they have been languishing in my flat’s cellar storage.

In the past week I have been trying to go through all the detritus that I have collected over the years. Old diaries, out of date credit and membership cards, books and a few records that no longer deserve a place in my collection. However, the most space-consuming articles were my posters and prints, collected over many decades. I started to look through the large folder containing most of the posters I had painted between 1966 and 1968. I was astonished (and a bit proud) of my typography, produced at a time when fonts were not easily found, but had to be copied manually. I have thus far found over forty posters and many friends have been impressed by my handiwork. A couple of fellow students have had memories awakened by seeing them again after such a long time.

Inflam posters:
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Party & Dance posters:

Lectures and gatherings:

Plays:

Art Posters:

There are a few more that I might add later. But I was surprised to see that the majority of my artworks had survived more than fifty years of being ignored. There was one unfinished poster that I found and I decided to finish it — four hours of painstaking draftsmanship and it was done:

This poster is called Johanna’s Not Here. Reading the text may give a hint as to why it’s got that title.

I’ve put some of these posters on Facebook and several FB friends have suggest I arrange an exhibition of them. But I’ve no idea how to go about it. So they’ll have to stay exhibited here. Perhaps I’ll get around to painting some more in the near future.