Jefferson Airplane

Object Details

Artist: Jim Blashfield, active c. 1967
Sitter: Grace Wing Slick, born 1939; Marty Balin, born 1942; Paul Kantner, born 1941; Jorma Kaukonen, born 1940; Jack Casady, born 1944; Spencer Dryden, 7 Apr 1938 - 10 Jan 2005

Exhibition Label: Rock promoter Bill Graham helped guide the Jefferson Airplane band to success in the vanguard of the country's anti-establishment hippie revolution. This advertisement for their 1967 concert at Graham's Fillmore Auditorium has all the elements of the classic psychedelic poster: searing colors, portraits of the musicians, ambiguous hand-drawn elements, and swelling letters that dance before the viewer's eyes. Such advertisements suggested the dizzying, multisensory experience of many Fillmore dance concerts, which were charged with high-decibel music, light shows, frenetic movement, and, often, mind-expanding drugs. The posters, visual symbols of the rock scene and the counterculture, began to vanish as soon as they appeared, grabbed by increasing numbers of collectors. Graham and other publishers produced extra quantities for retail sale, and poster stores opened in all the major cities. "Posters in every dimension and description . . . are being plastered across the U.S.," Life magazine reported in 1967.

Credit Line: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Leslie and Alice Schreyer

1967

Medium: Color photolithographic poster with halftone
Dimensions: Image: 49.5 × 33.8 cm (19 1/2 × 13 5/16"); Sheet: 52.3 × 35.2 cm (20 9/16 × 13 7/8")

Alternate Title: Grace Slick, Marty Balin, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, and Spencer Dryden,

National Portrait Gallery

Topic: Poster; Grace Wing Slick: Female; Grace Wing Slick: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Singer; Marty Balin: Male; Marty Balin: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician; Paul Kantner: Male; Paul Kantner: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician; Paul Kantner: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Songwriter; Paul Kantner: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Singer; Paul Kantner: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Guitarist; Jorma Kaukonen: Male; Jorma Kaukonen: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Guitarist; Jack Casady: Male; Jack Casady: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician; Spencer Dryden: Male; Spencer Dryden: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician; Portrait

GUID (Link to Original Record): http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/sm432510d7f-8c6f-47f1-a702-969d0ef12e59