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Postermania of the 1960s

The 1960s revolutionized the design, purpose, and collecting of posters, turning low-cost advertising products into decorative statements of one’s personal affiliations and launching a second poster craze. As images of film celebrities, rock bands, and political activists wallpapered dorm rooms within the rapidly expanding collegiate demographic, poster vendors flourished, and the press took notice. Hilton Kramer called it “Postermania” in the New York Times.

While celebrity and activist images were often photographic, much of the poster art of the 1960s sported a radical new look. On the East Coast, the disparate artists of New York’s Push Pin Studios promoted innovation, ignoring Bauhaus-inspired spareness and turning toward more decorative precursors. Milton Glaser’s Dylan quickly became an icon of the era. Psychedelic West Coast rock posters, characterized by swirling colors and illegible lettering, successfully evoked the burgeoning counterculture and were collected throughout the nation and overseas.

For other 1960s posters, see “Politics and Protest” and “The Product and the Promise.”

                
  Poster image   Poster image  
  Click to enlarge image Count Basie and Band/Stan Getz and Quartet
Count Basie, Stan Getz
Seymour Chwast, 1963
Color photolithographic poster
93.3 x 47.9 cm (36 3/4 x 18 7/8 in.)
National Portrait Gallery; gift of Jack Rennert
© Seymour Chwast
  Click to enlarge image Dylan
Bob Dylan  
Milton Glaser, 1966
Color photolithographic poster with halftone
83.8 x 55.8 cm (33 x 21 15/16 in.)
National Portrait Gallery
© Milton Glaser
 
           
  Poster image   Poster image    
  Click to enlarge image Junior Wells
Victor Moscoso, 1966
Color photolithographic poster
51 x 36 cm (20 1/16 x 14 3/16 in.)
National Portrait Gallery
© Victor Moscoso
  Click to enlarge image Butterfield Blues Band
Robert Wesley Wilson, 1967
Color photolithographic poster with halftone
55.5 x 37.4 cm (21 7/8 x 14 3/4 in.)
National Portrait Gallery; gift of Jack Banning
© Wes Wilson / Bill Graham
 
             
  Poster image   Poster image    
  Click to enlarge image Jefferson Airplane
Jim Blashfield, 1967; after Herb Greene
Color photolithographic poster with halftone
52.3 x 35.2 cm (20 9/16 x 13 7/8 in.)
National Portrait Gallery; gift of Leslie and Alice Schreyer
© Jim Blashfield / Bill Graham
  Click to enlarge image Bette Midler
Richard Amsel,  1973
Color photolithographic poster
114.3 x 74.9 cm (45 x 29 1/2 in.)
National Portrait Gallery; gift of Jack Rennert
© Richard Amsel
   
     

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