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Object Timeline
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1968 |
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1979 |
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2007 |
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2008 |
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2013 |
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2015 |
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2026 |
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Poster, Canned Heat
This is a poster. It was designed by Lee Conklin and printed by Tea Lautrec Litho. It is dated 1968 and we acquired it in 1979. Its medium is offset lithograph on white wove paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.
Psychedlic Promotion
The Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco was “ground zero” for the counterculture revolution of the 1960s. The so-called psychedelic subculture that emerged in the Haight explored new possibilities in art and living that stemmed from a desire to remake American culture. The artistic endeavors of this community, be it poetry, theater, dance or music, were expressed in weekly “concerts” held in two primary venues. The first was infamous promoter and entrepreneur Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium and the other was the Avalon Ballroom operated by a small commune called The Family Dog.
Concert posters used to promote these shows were as unconventional as the performances themselves. They were more than just advertisements; these posters were “totemic expressions of the collective consciousness.” The Haight’s psychedelic posters were inspired by a fusion of Art Nouveau swirls and Optical Art geometry. Together these elements intentionally but playfully overwhelmed the informational content. Decoding a poster’s material required the viewer to suspend conventional methods of processing in order to discover the full extent of the message within.
This particular poster in the Cooper-Hewitt collection was designed by Lee Conklin for a 1968 concert featuring performances by Canned Heat, Gordon Lightfoot and Cold Blood. The central textual motif seems to billow out of an urn at the bottom of the image in a mushroom-like shape. This mushroom cloud of words is surrounded by a border of interconnected figures, faces, breasts and swirls.
The small group of graphic artists that produced these psychedelic concert posters was very much engaged in the developing field of optics and the science behind how the brain processes both information and color. The point of their posters was not to announce information. Instead, concert posters emerging from The Haight engaged the viewer in the experience and essence of the community that created them. Today these posters remain one of the most visible representations and embodiments of the Bay Area scene during the 1960s.
This object was featured in our Object of the Week series in a post titled Psychedlic Promotion.
This object was
donated by
Mr. Leslie Schreyer and Mrs. Alice Schreyer.
It is credited Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie J. Schreyer.
- Poster, Blowing in the Mind / Mister Tambourine Man
- lithograph on wove paper.
- Gift of Sara and Marc Benda.
- 2009-12-25
- Poster, Junior Wells
- offset lithograph on white wove paper.
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie J. Schreyer.
- 1979-34-37
- Poster, Otis Rush & His Chicago Blues Band / Grateful Dead / The Canned Heat...
- offset lithograph on white wove paper.
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie J. Schreyer.
- 1979-34-28
Our curators have highlighted 1 object that are related to this one.
- Tapestry, Nightless Night, from the Reveille series
- jacquard-woven mohair and rubber.
- Courtesy of Kustaa Saksi.
- 15.2015.1
Its dimensions are
Frame: 56.5 x 41.3 x 2.5 cm (22 1/4 x 16 1/4 x 1 in.) Overall: 53.8 x 36 cm (21 3/16 x 14 3/16 in.)
It is signed
Signed, center left: Lee Conklin
It is inscribed
Bill Graham presents in San Francisco; Canned Heat, Gordon Lightfoot, Cold Blood; Fillmore Auditorium Lee Conklin c1968 Bill Graham #139 Tea Lautrec Litho S.F.
Cite this object as
Poster, Canned Heat; Designed by Lee Conklin (b. 1941); Printed by Tea Lautrec Litho (United States); offset lithograph on white wove paper; Frame: 56.5 x 41.3 x 2.5 cm (22 1/4 x 16 1/4 x 1 in.) Overall: 53.8 x 36 cm (21 3/16 x 14 3/16 in.); Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie J. Schreyer; 1979-34-5
In addition to Art of Noise, this object was previously on display as part of the exhibition Rococo: The Continuing Curve 1730-2008.
