Grateful Dead Handbill
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Psychedelia was in full flower in this Wilson poster. Only the finely drawn female face featuring delicate sensory pathways is firm, and the words curl around about it like smoke from a pipe. The music of headliner Otis Rush, the Grateful Dead and Canned Heat offered something for everyone.
The only handbills known to exist measure 4 3/4" x 7 1/2". Since only a small number have ever been found, it's possible that these pre-concert handbills were actually intended to be postcards and were simply overlooked in the back stamping process.
When the Avalon Ballroom and Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium began to hold weekly dance concerts, Wilson was called upon to design the posters. He created psychedelic posters from February 1966 to May 1967, when disputes over money severed his connection with Graham. Wilson pioneered the psychedelic rock poster. Intended for a particular audience, "one that was tuned in to the psychedelic experience," his art, and especially the exaggerated freehand lettering, emerged from Wilson's own involvement with that experience and the psychedelic art of light shows.