In the mid-1960s, artists, writers, and musicians moved into San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district with hopes of creating a new social paradigm. By 1967, during the highly publicized “Summer of Love,” the neighborhood would attract as many as 100,000 young people from all over the nation. Local bands such as Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead provided the soundtrack; the San Francisco Sound found visual counterparts in the creative industries that sprang up around it.

Through a wide array of iconic rock posters, interactive music and light shows, “out-of-this-world” clothing, and photographs from the years surrounding this pivotal moment, Summer of Love celebrates the city’s rebellious and colorful counterculture and explores the visual and material cultures of a generation searching for personal fulfillment through social change. The immersive exhibition includes rock posters by artists including Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, and Wes Wilson along with examples of the handcrafted, one-of-a-kind garments created by such designers as Brigitta Bjerke, K. Lee Manuel, and Jeanne Rose.

FAMSF Docent speaker: Ellen Hardin

At the De Young: April 8, 2017 – August 20, 2017

Poster above: Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley, “Skeleton and Roses,” Grateful Dead, Oxford Circle, September 16 & 17, Avalon Ballroom, 1966. Color offset lithograph poster, 19 15/16 x 14 in.