In the sixties, psychedelia could be found in London as well as Haight Ashbury.
From light shows to posters, it gave graphic artists new creative outlets.
As kids get back to school, Idea Generation Gallery will lift the curtain on Hapshash Takes a Trip: The sixties work of Nigel Waymouth exhibit in London.
"Hapshash, one of the most famous British design collectives of the 20th Century, are best known for their psychedelic posters created for the biggest underground music venue of its time, the legendary UFO Club. The club made for a memorable venue for performances by Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, Jeff Beck, The Move and The Incredible String Band, heroes who all truly embraced the free-spirited culture which has become so indelibly linked with the ’60s – an ethos visually manifest in the Hapshash posters, which themselves have become seminal works in the pantheon of poster art."
"Nigel Waymouth was first introduced to Michael English in 1966, when he was designing the shop front for his radical new vintage boutique on the Kings Road: Granny Takes a Trip. In a twist of coincidence, Michael was concurrently designing the shop front for another store, Hung on You. Born from this casual meeting was one of the most successful creative partnerships of the era. A partnership that would both define and launch an entirely new art market: the sale of commercial posters as art.
The new duo’s first collaborative work was a promotional poster for the radical underground UFO Club. Joe Boyd, co-founder of UFO explains:
They’d never met each other and we basically locked them in a room and said ‘Come out with a poster!’ and they came up with the best thing they ever did."
Exhibit opens on September 9 and runs until October 2, 2011.
Monday to Friday: 10 – 6pm/ Saturday & Sunday: 12 – 5pm
Admission is Free
(*Illustration is CIA vs UFO from Idea Generation Gallery exhibit pages)