Victor Moscoso

When thinking of psychedelic art, what most often springs to mind is psychedelic poster art. A notable name in this specific type of art is Victor Moscoso. He is most well known for his poster work and his non-traditional use of color. His designs were vivid, full of color and patterns and incorporated hand made fonts as well as collage techniques and pop art. He even created a type of poster called "slow read" which consisted of small, almost illegible font which was near impossible to read unless you literally read slowly.

"Moscoso created works which are classic examples of the peak of psychedelic poster art and commercial graphic design. He changed the rules and developed a visual lexicon which juxtaposed psychedelic art and the traditional arts of the past. He moved from the simple design and subdued colours of the past to hot colours and use of the artistic hand." -Transpersonal Spirit

The Poster Mania

The Poster Mania

The poster craze of the 1960s was a grass-roots affair created by a series of social activism. The civil rights movement, the people's protest against the Vietnam War, women's liberation movement and others all played a big part in social up heaves of the decade. Posters of the time period were hung on people's walls compared to them being posted on the walls in the streets. The posters represented social viewpoints. The first set of posters that made history all started in the late 1960s that was created by hippie subcultures in San Francisco. These posters were related to rock music, psychedelic drugs, and anti-established values. These posters were called psychedelic posters.

The artists behind creating these posters were mostly self-taught and their main clients were rock-and-roll concerts and dance promoters. Dances were big in the 1960s that encouraged these artists to create these posters. Loud music and light shows showered these paralleled graphic posters using swirling forms and lettering to form highly printed, vibrant, intriguing colors.

Robert Wesley "Wes" Wilson was a big influence in creating posters for the Grateful Dead. He was the innovator of the psychedelic poster style and created many more during his career. An artist named Peter Max. A New York native designer known for his softer colors and more accessible images. One of his most famous images is the 1970 "Love" graphic. His creations went on merchandise, from mugs to T-shirts to clocks. It spread and attracted a younger crowd all across America.

Rick Griffin

Richard Alden Griffin "Rick"

June 18, 1944 - August 18, 1991

Richard "Rick" Griffin was one of the leading American designers of psychedelic posters in the 1960s. He was mostly identified with the Grateful Dead, designing some of the best album posters for the band. One of his most famous works is the poster cover for the Grateful Dead: Aoxomoxoa album. Another famous work is also the flying eyeball. His work also contributed big in the surfing subculture both film posters and his own comic strip called "Murphy" for Surfer magazine in 1961. In 1967, after Griffin moved to San Francisco, teamed up with fellow designers creating a company who created and marketed psychedelic posters called Berkeley Bonaparte. source

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was a very influential artist during the Psychedelic era. His most notable contribution to the time period were his works in the pop art genre, a genre which he helped to create. This contribution completely changed the course of modern art by rejuvenationg the american art scene by drawing upon the style of art most commonly associated with newspaper and comic books.

"As with his most celebrated Pop paintings of the 1960s, Lichtenstein gravitated toward what he would characterize as the “dumbest” or “worst” visual item he could find and then went on to alter or improve it. In the 1960s, commercial art was considered beneath contempt by the art world; in the early 1950s, with the rise of Abstract Expressionism, nineteenth-century American narrative and genre paintings were at the nadir of their reputation among critics and collectors. Paraphrasing, particularly the paraphrasing of despised images, became a paramount feature of Lichtenstein’s art. Well before finding his signature mode of expression in 1961, Lichtenstein called attention to the artifice of conventions and taste that permeated art and society." source

Examples of Lichtenstein's work:

 

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