FEATURED ARTIST: Lee Conklin

Previously featured: Ed "Big Daddy" Roth
Rick Griffin
William Weege

When I started working at the Postermat back in 1989, the first artist I became a fan of was Lee Conklin. The walls of the vintage poster store were covered with original rock concert posters but Conklin's hallucinatory images and psychedelic colors drew me in and I would sit and stare at them for hours, trying to discover their meaning and wishing I'd been a teenager living in San Francisco during those historic and turmoltuous 1960's.

Lee Conklin was born July 24th, 1941 in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and attended Calvin College, studying philosophy and history for several years before dropping out and eventually moving to San Francisco in 1968 during the "Summer of Love". There he met Bill Graham, maverick concert promoter and owner of the Fillmore Auditorium, the happening concert hall that showcased all the top rock and folk performers of the time including: The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Santana, The Who, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. From 1968-1969 Conklin produced 31 rock concert posters for the Fillmore. Conklin wanted to translate the psychedelic drug experience through his rock posters and he often painted while tripping on acid.

Conklin's work for the Fillmore ended in 1969 after a money dispute and he moved to Petaluma, California where he continued to work in his studio. After Bill Graham died in 1991, Conklin painted new rock posters for Bill Graham Presents. Today, Lee Conklin resides in Columbia, California where he continues to create beautiful and trippy psychedelic art.