Wilson Inks An Impression On Music

When Wes Wilson first started designing rock posters, he didn't think twice about the deadlines or price. He just wanted to get the work done, making just enough money to afford the $30 rent he paid to stay at the Wentley Hotel in San Francisco. Several artists lived there.

It was one of them, his friend Kent Chapman, who eventually introduced Wilson to the owner of a small in-house commercial printing company. Together, they eventually took the company out of house. And it was there that Wilson made a symbolic political poster as a personal project.

When he took the infamous poster, which featured the stars and stripes of the American flag recast as a swastika, to an anti-war rally at Berkeley, reactions were mixed. Allen Ginsberg called it paranoid. The Anti-Defaminaton League thought it might be anti-Semitic. But is was promoter Chet Helms who saw something else.

He saw an emerging concert poster artist, even if Wilson considered drawing something that everyone in his family could do well. Helms went on to pay Wilson as little as $60 for short runs of 300 posters. Today, surviving posters such as Tribal Stomp sell for as much as $24,000.

Wes Wilson became the father of psychedelic rock posters. 

While psychedelic rock posters with freeform lettering became commonplace in the 1970s, Wilson had set the tone of them in motion in the 1960s. As he tells it today, serendipity interrupted all his plans and he began creating art for the masses, much of it inspired by Art Nouveau masters.

His work became so sought after that Bill Graham hired him the minute he saw one of the famous Open Theater posters. The two of them worked together for a spell until Graham realized Wilson was copyrighting his work. In the end, it was the contract that ended their friendship because the 6 percent royalty seemed fair to Graham until he realized he sold 100,000 posters.

In addition to those he sold, Graham used to accumulate and store material in newly minted condition, always having faith the posters would eventually be seen as works of art. That work, including the work of Wes Wilson, is now owned and managed by Wolfgang's Vault.

Some work, such as the Paul Butterfield Blues Band postcard, is listed for $20. Other work, such as the Sin Dance tour poster (featuring The Grass Roots, The Sons Of Adam, and Big Brother) lists for $1,900. Often the value is determined by the bands, art, and rarity.

A couple more graphs about artist Wes Wilson.

Wes Wilson was born in 1937 and a native of Sacramento, California. Interestingly enough, he was not interested in art as much as the nature and the outdoors. He studied forestry and horticulture at a small junior college in Auburn, California, until dropping out in 1963. His first poster was self-published two years later.

The timing was right in that an alternative culture was emerging and Wilson became caught up in it. The deeper he immersed himself in the work, the more he became inspired by great artists like Alphonse Mucha, Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt, and Egon Schiele and eventually Alfred Roller. The work progressed until finally reaching its height in 1966. He stopped working for Graham in 1967.

In 1968, Wilson was surprised to learn that he was to receive a $5,000 award by the National Endowment for the Arts for “his contributions to American Art.” The award recognized Wilson as a leader of the psychedelic poster scene, opening his work to be profiled in such major magazines as Life, Time, and Variety. In 1973, he and his family relocated to a cattle farm in the Missouri Ozarks.

The Art Of Wes Wilson Prints Up 9.1 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale. 

The techniques that Wilson brought to the forefront still inspire poster artists today, filling the space with free lettering and beautiful repeating patterns. In addition to the vintage posters that helped define an era, Wilson produced some extraordinary watercolors and other original art that can be found on his site. They include posters for Graham, Family Dog, and others.

You can find some of his work for sale on his site. Conversely, many of the posters he designed for Graham and the Fillmore can be found at Wolfgang's Vault. Along with Wilson, the vault manages and sells posters, shirts, and photographs that were locked away by one of the most important promotors in San Francisco.

Wolfgang's Flair For Vintage Shirts

There are plenty of brands that borrow vintage designs as starting points, but not everyone gets it right. Some of the best T-shirt designs weren't retro brands as much as band art growing out of the synergy that was the Sixties.

The colors were vivid. The letters were drawn by hand. The imagery was all over the place, ranging from straightforward to psychedelic. Everything being made at the time truly dressed the stage. It was art created by artists who relied on pot as much as pens to ink out handbills, posters, and T-shirts.

Almost everybody was breaking the rules, shaping the new look of counterculture but never taking it all that seriously. Most them were simply happy being set free by promotors like Bill Graham and Chet Helms for bands on the verge of becoming household names.

Pop Art, Op Art, And Art Nouveau straight from Wolfgang's Vault. 

The posters are cool, but there was something to be said for the timelessness of the tees. The Jimi Hendrix by artist David Byrd captures the free spirited excitement of the time. As the story goes, Hendrix loved the design so much that the poster art became the cover of his press kit.

When Hendrix did play the legendary Fillmore East, he was already at the height of his career. He was booked for two shows on one night, with the opening act being Sly & the Family Stone. And according to the T-shirt brief, Sly wasn't mentioned on the promotional material and was even heckled by the crowd who had only come in for the legendary Hendrix.

Like all of Wolfgang's Vault vintage T-shirts, they are made from ringspun cotton, with a few featuring a polyester blend to add some stretch and softness. All of the shirts are cut to fit like they did in the 60s, 70s, an 80s, which is more snug than many shirts made today (Wolfgang suggests one size up).

Not all the shirts on hand were originated by artists designing promo material  for bands slated to play the Fillmore. Some of them are licensed with partners, like the infamous Ramones logo that first appeared in the late 1970s. The run of the logo dates from 1978-1983 and has become one of the best recognized icons of punk.

Although the store doesn't include the artist, we know the man behind the now vintage image was artist and designer Arturo Vega. It was Vega's loft, which was located just a few doors down from CBGBs, where the Ramones found their makeshift headquarters in the early years. Vega has even been called their muse.

Originally, the artist was just trying to find ways to cover his own airfare and expenses so he could join the band on tour. That's when he came up with the idea of designing a T-shirt. The band laughed at him out loud. They never expected them to sell.

Another licensed design is the equally famous Roxy Music girls photo, featuring Constanze Karoli and Eveline Grunwald (sister and girlfriend of guitarist Michael Karoli). The shot was taken for an Island Records promo for Country Life in 1972. Even people who didn't click with the music, clicked with the snapshot of two girls standing in front of a shrub.

If you ever wondered, the cover was shot in Portugal, with the art credited to Bryan Ferry and Nick DeVille. Both the girls were fans of the band and neither of them thought it was as scandalous as the United States and a handful of other countries did. Atco Records had the sleeve wrapped up opaque green plastic with a warning sticker. Later, it demanded a redesign with the shrub on the back cover put on front, cutting out the girls all together.

A few graphs about the man who made Wolfgang's Vault possible. 

Whether the art was commissioned by the Fillmore or inspired by it as it took hold, Bill Graham (a.k.a. Wolfgang Grajonca) deserves some of the credit. Had it not been for his vision, there is a good chance that the concert art movement spawned in the 60s and 70s may never have happened.

He was among the first to commission artists to promote concerts (much like the Impressionists were commissioned to promote shows) and smart enough to overprint everything, preserving it all for its historic importance. Today, Wolfgang's Vault is filled with both vintage originals and recreations.

Sometimes it is almost hard to believe that Graham's presence in the concert scene started shortly after securing a modest three-year lease on the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco (1966). Almost overnight, he became the man who would introduce audiences to legendary acts like Otis Redding, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. After San Francisco, he expanded his productions to New York City.

The Fillmores eventually closed in 1971, but both locations had a wild ride with thousands of concerts by an eclectic lineup that included those who were famous and those who are still unknown. Graham stood up for all of them and always demanded audiences give opening acts a fair shot. He continued to do so even after moving on to larger venues.

Wolfgang's Vault Collection Of Vintage Ts Screens 7.8 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale.

On any given day, Wolfgang's Vault carries more than vintage T-shirt designs, ranging from the artists that Graham commissioned to those with timeless band logos like the Ramones. With some of the T-shirt designs trending toward simpler art, revisiting some timeless retro designs might be in order.

The majority of Wolfgang's Vault comes from comes from the exquisitely preserved, original archives of Bill Graham Presents. Beginning with the seminal concerts of the mid 1960s and continuing through today, the store has assembled a superb collection that is being cared for in state-of-the-art facilities. You can find the various retro apparel designs as fresh as the era when they were introduced.