ENJOY THIS TRIP: THE ART OF MUSIC POSTERS

A National Gallery Touring Exhibition

2 November 2024 - 19 January 2025
Main Gallery & Margaret Scott Gallery

In 1978 the National Gallery acquired an impressive collection of more than 500 music posters from the collection of Brian Friedman. They capture the spirit of change in the 1960s; an era of experimentation, psychedelia, music, art and the Summer of Love.

The period is marked by groundbreaking developments in art, fashion, music, and politics where bands such as Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead represented what would become known as the “San Francisco Sound,” music that found its visual counterpart in rock poster design.

San Francisco’s Big Five (Alton Kelly, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, Wes Wilson and Stanley ‘Mouse’ Miller) was a group of graphic artists who would pioneer the distinctive and instantly recognisable kaleidoscopic style that mirrored the psychedelic concerts they promoted. Blending a heady concoction of LSD-fuelled mind-excursions, Art Nouveau and found images harvested from the San Francisco Public Library, their work ditched the typeset formality of advertising in favour of intricate hand-lettering intended to stop people in their tracks.

Enjoy This Trip: The Art of Music Posters is a National Gallery Touring Exhibition supported by the Australian Government through the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program.

Image: Mouse Studios, The Bindweed Press, Grateful Dead, 1966, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 1978