Alton Kelley (1940 – 2008)
Stanley Mouse (George Stanley Miller) (b. 1940)
1966
Commercial/offset printing on paper
Anonymous loan
L.2022.4.6
Inspired by Edmund Joseph Sullivan, The Rubáiyát of Omar Kháyyam
Rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald with illustrations by Edmund J. Sullivan (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., first published 1913).
Art Collection purchase
2019.16.1
The heyday of classic rock bands performing in the counterculture movement of 1960s San Francisco initiated a new genre of psychedelic posters and handbills that came to define the aesthetics of the time. Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse created posters for Family Dog productions under the leadership of Chet Helms. Their iconic poster for the Grateful Dead’s performance at the Avalon Ballroom in the Polk Gulch neighborhood featured a skeleton with roses taken directly from an illustration for The Rubáiyát of Omar Kháyyam, a popular book of 11th-century Persian verses. The edition was published in London in 1913 with illustrations by E.J. Sullivan.
According to David Browne in Rolling Stone Magazine (March 4, 2022), Kelley and Mouse found the book in a local library and cut the illustration out with a penknife. Back at their studio they copied the image using a precursor to the xerox machine. Mr. Mouse colored it in and added the fluid lettering. The resulting poster became part of the band’s visual identity. It was featured on the cover of their 1971 live album and became their official logo.