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While the main focus was on the San Francisco scene in the Sixties, there were some great venues popping up across the county with amazing poster art and bands. One of these venues was Russ Gibb’s Grande Ballroom dances and concerts in Detroit, Michigan, an area not thought of as the “hippest” place in the US at the time. However, Detroit was producing some of the best psychedelic art and music in the county and Gary Grimshaw, a poster artist, was at the center of it all.
His “Zebra Man” poster for the month fof April is even more striking than Kelly’s and Mouse’s famous FD28 done for the Family Dog only a few weeks before Grimshaw completed his own version. Gary has said t he had no knowledge of Mouse and Kelly’s poster at the time he was doing his, which just goes to show, there is something to be said about the cosmic waves that were circulating within the creative community of the counter-culture at the time!
What is interesting about Grimshaw’s version of the Zebra Man poster are the colors that were used. From what I have read, the human eye is not well equipped to see or distinguish red and blue colors when used simultaneously with each other and when they are used, the colors produces a gyrating or psychedelic effect. Now I don’t know if Gary knew this from his art training, but the effect of this poster is as striking as any poster done in the Sixties.
What’s also interesting about the Zebra Man posters for both the Family Dog and Grande Ballroom is the image was taken from a Life Magazine Cover from December 1954 – over a decade before the Sixties psychedelic movement, which this image has now become to represent. Who would have thought this picture at the time would become one of the most recognized images for the Sixties psychedelic movement?
Finally, those not acquainted with Gary Grimshaw’s poster art need to give it a serious look as he was one of the best psychedelic poster artists during this period and this is one of his finest! A great Vintage Concert Poster from the Sixties from the Grande Ballroom!
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