In the 1980s, Deadhead art matured, with increasingly beautiful wares sold on Shakedown Street, the unofficial parking lot vending scene that accompanied shows. After the success of the Dead’s 1987 release In the Dark, the band was forced to tightly control its trademarks, and many parking lot vendors obtained licenses to make and sell goods, from T-shirts to posters to crafts. Recognizing the increasing skill and creativity of fan art, the band began commissioning designs from Deadhead artists, and the Archive has dozens of designs that were submitted for consideration. These range from beautiful works of art to sketches, designs, and detailed explanations of what was proposed. The exhibit features a range of those designs, from sketches to finished works, in a variety of formats, from notebooks to board-mounted final drafts.

The band did more than just nurture the artistic side of the Dead phenomenon, they participated in it, modeling their philosophy in more forms than just their music. Just as concerts were co-creations, collaborations between musicians and audience, so too were the artistic trappings that colored and illustrated the experience. From Jerry Garcia’s and Robert Hunter’s paintings and whimsical cartoons to the mature work of Garcia and of drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, band members showed that the connections between art forms in the world of the Grateful Dead could be supple, extended, and powerful. It made the Deadhead experience a multifaceted, multimedia artistic phenomenon.

Garcia’s work has had the greatest public exposure, but both Hart and Kreutzmann have had gallery exhibitions and continue to paint today.

Further reading:

Jerry Garcia : the collected artwork / preface by Bob Dylan ; foreword by Mickey Hart ; edited by April Higashi 

• thorough overview of Garcia’s mature work, organized by medium, along with selected juvenilia and commentary

Drumming at the edge of magic : a journey into the spirit of percussion / Mickey Hart with Jay Stevens and with Fredric Lieberman

• entertaining and thoughtful memoir oriented around a wide-ranging exploration of percussion

ⓒ  1995 GDP, Inc. All rights reserved.