Grateful Dead Poster
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The Grateful Dead headlined Big Mama Mae Thornton's second appearance at the Fillmore. Balance is the message in this poster; just as the playing card visage could be folded to form an almost perfectly symmetrical Rorschach blot, Big Mama balanced the Dead.
The 1st printing has "Printing by West Coast Lithograph Co., SF" running vertically in the lower right hand margin. It was printed before the concert and measures 14" x 21 15/16".
The post-concert 2nd printing deletes the "West Coast Lithograph" credit and measures 14" x 22 1/8".
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.