After serving in the Army National guard, Wes Wilson moved to San Francisco where he started his career as a designer. He worked at Contact Printing where his first job was to produce handbills for Mime Troupe Appeal parties. This job ultimately profiled him as a poster designer and he would be commissioned to create posters for weekly dance concerts for the Avalon Ballroom and the Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium. Further, Graham allowed Wilson to be experimental, this led to Wilson’s inspiration derived from the Art Nouveau movement and the Viennese Secessionist lettering style developed by Alfred Roller. Wilson used this style to create his own aesthetic and made them indistinguishable by expanding their outlines and inset shapes. He experimented with foreground, background, and colour to make his designs more exaggerated with each new creation. Melted lines, letters that filled every space, and vibrant colours is what made up his new style of the psychedelic poster. Wilson’s style was very unique, but by the mid 1960s, many artists copied it. Wilson is still credited for pioneering the psychedelic poster style and became the father of 60s rock concert posters. Overall, I love his work because it gives me a sense of joy when I look at it. His aesthetic his always been one that I admired and it’s really fascinating to learn about how it all started.
Sources:
https://www.bahrgallery.com/artist-master/wes-wilson
https://www.wes-wilson.com/about-wes.html
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/wes-wilson-27389
https://www.classicposters.com/artist/wes-wilson/
