Iron Butterfly Handbill
Image may not exactly match item shipped.
The second of Griffin and Moscoso's poster collaborations for Bill Graham, this Iron Butterfly offering is very similar to BG140. In fact, Moscoso said that after a bit, "... it became difficult to tell where Rick drew and where I drew." In BG141, the scarab changed into a "trash burner[s] with horns."
The handbill measures 4 5/8" x 7" and displays a calendar of upcoming Bill Graham events on the reverse. It was printed before the concert.
There were also some pre-concert mailers printed that were conjoined with the BG141 image (see BG140/141). They measure 7" x 9 1/4".
Rick Griffin grew up in the surfing culture of Southern California, a milieu which had a profound influence on his art. After high school, he worked on the staff of Surfer magazine and created the best-known surfing cartoon character of the time, Murphy. After his move to San Francisco in 1967, be began combining eclectic typefaces and decorative borders with brilliant colors in his concert posters. Griffin's compositions were complex without being illegible. A perfectionist, Griffin often applied dozens of overlays and redrew lettering again and again until he was satisfied. In the early 1970s, Griffin became a born-again Christian and religious themes dominated his work until his death in a motorcycle accident in 1991.