Sunday 8 June 2008

Alton Kelley r.i.p.



Alton Kelley, the well known psychedelic artist who animated the Haight Ashbury scene during the sixties, co-founded the Family Dog and made concert posters and album covers for artists like The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin & The Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Journey, passed away on Sunday at his home in Petaluma, California for osteoporosys complications.

Kelley and his longtime collaborator Stanley Mouse combined Art Nuveau lettering, old catalogs and images taken from several sources to create a visual equivalent of an acid trip.

Their 'trademark' was the 'skull and roses', an adaptation from the book "The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam", that became a Grateful Dead concert poster in 1966, a Dead cover album in 1971 and was adopted as their symbol by the band.


Thanks Alton for all the colors and outstanding images that lighted up our minds...You will be missed, not forgotten. R.i.p.
(read more about Alton and his works here)

2 comments:

Maurizio said...

rip alton
http://www.rockument.com/kelley.html

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link, Maurizio, I'll add it to the post (and probably some images too)