The Art of The Grateful Dead Exhibition: October 26 through December 23.
The Grateful Dead were in the epicenter of the psychedelic poster revolution. As the Dead’s Jerry Garcia said in 1987, “A poster unlocks memories just like a record does. You know how the records you listened to were the background music of your life? Well, the posters are the front pages, the covers of your life. I just can’t help looking at these and going BOING! I don’t know why. It’s what art is.”
The Bahr Gallery will feature vintage Grateful Dead posters in an exhibition opening October 26, and running through December 23. Grateful Dead posters from 1966-1987 will be dispayed with emphasis on pre-1971 rare works. Included in the exhibition are a scare 5/8/77 Barton Hall, the Grateful Dead at the Boston Tea Party on New Year's Eve 1969, the original 1969mAoxomoxoa poster, a rare first printing Skeleton and Roses from 1966, and an oversized, mind-blowing day-glo poster from Panther Hall in Ft. Worth Texas, 1970.
The San Francisco School of artists left behind a visual record of innovation and artistic merit similar to the artists of the Belle Epoch, led by Art Nouveau practitioners like Alphonse Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley, and Gustav Klimt.
Virtually all pieces are first editions, printed before the concert occurred and are accompanied with meticulous background and history, placing each piece in context. Many are signed by artist and/or performers. Much of this art currently hangs in the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, the Louvre, and other leading museums and institutions around the world.
“We are curating the visual experience for admirers of this art, the music, and its special time in history, said gallery owner and curator Ted Bahr. “It’s time for these 50-year-old works of art – already highly prized by collectors and connoisseurs of the period – to be properly displayed in a beautiful, elegant setting as they seek new homes.”
The Bahr Gallery, which opened in April of this year, has several rooms totaling 1,200 square feet and features nearly 70 psychedelic master works on rotation highlighting posters from San Francisco’s “Big Five” poster artists; Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, and Alton Kelley.
The opening of The Bahr Gallery continues the recent renaissance in Oyster Bay, marked by a slew of hot new restaurants, innovative family attractions, and its proximity to the Long Island Sound. The Bahr Gallery is open Thursday through Sundays from 12:30-6:00 and by appointment.