Display at County Museum is lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy

Friday, May 24, 2002 | 9:06 a.m.

What: "Feelin' Groovy: Rock n' Roll Graphics, 1966-70."

When: Through Aug. 18.

Where: Clark County Museum, 1830 S. Boulder Highway, Henderson.

Admission: $1.50; $1 for seniors and children.

Information: 455-7955.

They hitchhiked across the United States, tripping on LSD, growing their hair and exploring newfound sexual freedom.

Converging by the thousands in the 1960s at San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, these Baby Boomers reaching adulthood questioned authority while favoring love over war.

Bands such as The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Country Joe and the Fish were playing to the peace-loving crowds at the Filmore Auditorium and the Avalon Ballroom.

Steppenwolf, Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry (who performed in those days on the same bill as the Dead), Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Charlatans were also names among the lineup of performers and bands.

Through Aug. 18 a collection of nearly 100 vividly colored, original commercial lithographs that promoted such concerts are on display at Clark County Museum on Boulder Highway.

Titled "Feelin' Groovy: Rock n' Roll Graphics, 1966-70" the exhibit features the artwork of Stanley "Mouse" Miller, Rick Griffin, Bob Fried, Wes Wilson and Victor Moscosco, among others.

Concert promoters, including a group called the Family Dog and the late Bill Graham, hired the artists to create the psychedelic posters and handbills that echoed the mood of the counterculture.

Combining art nouveau, pop art and op art (optical illusion art) the posters feature blazing colors, swirling images and mystical elements. Nude women with long, flowing hair and arms extended, fish, birds, Western and Victorian themes and acid-tripping imagery are among the subject matter.

The artwork provides an opportunity to talk about the era and what was happening culturally and socially, said Jennifer Cahn, curator of exhibits at Exhibits USA, the Kansas City, Mo., company that organized the tour.

Artistically, Cahn said, "There was essentially a revival of poster art in the 1960s around the rock movement."

"Among the many important elements were the psychedelic colors and the use of hand-lettering," she said. "The text becomes as much a part of the design as it is something to read."

The poster collection was owned by a former student of the San Francisco Art Institute, who lived in the Haight-Ashbury district at the time and saved the handbills, Cahn said. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock received the collection in 1986 and curated an exhibit in 1988, later turning it over to Exhibits USA.

Staff at Clark County Museum added '60s memorabilia to augment the exhibit.

An orange rotary-dial telephone, a Sony reel-to-reel stereo recorder, albums by Sonny and Cher, Iron Butterfly and Joni Mitchell and a copy of writer and activist Abbie Hoffman's book "Woodstock Nation" are included in the display.

Mannequins are dressed in fashions of the decade wearing paisley prints, leather mini skirts and bell bottoms. Album covers featuring the soundtracks to television shows "I Spy" and "Hawaii Five-0" made it into the display.

"I tried to put in a little of everything you might find in the '60s," Dawna Jolliff, curator of exhibits at Clark County Museum, said.

Psychedelic-decorated menu covers, a high school notebook from the 1960s and a copy of Nevada magazine are displayed to demonstrate how the colorful poster art permeated into all parts of society, she added.

"It was an influence on ordinary every day things." Jolliff said. "Everything was influenced by this movement."06