Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company

Object Details

Exhibition Label

Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company

When Texas-born singer Janis Joplin (1943-1970) joined the San Francisco band Big Brother and the Holding Company, she propelled the group to the top of the rock scene. A passionate, bluesy singer with a raw, powerful voice, Joplin electrified audiences with her sexualized performance style, delivered with explosive movements and a variety of wailing, whispering, and shrieking sounds. Before her tragic death of a drug overdose at age twenty-seven, Joplin had become a female rock icon. This 1967 advertisement for Big Brother's appearance at a club called the Matrix was designed by Victor Moscoso, a pioneer and master of the psychedelic rock poster. Discarding his extensive art training at the Cooper Union in New York and at Yale, Moscoso produced some of the boldest advertising of the era, enlivened with searing, clashing colors and deliberately illegible lettering.

Data Source

National Portrait Gallery

Artist

Victor Moscoso, born 1936

Copy after

Lisa Bachelis Law

Printer

Neon Rose

Sitter

Samuel Andrew, 18 Dec 1941 - 12 Feb 2015

James Gurley, 22 Dec 1939 - 20 Dec 2009

Peter Albin, born 1944

David Getz, born 1938

Janis Joplin, 19 Jan 1943 - 4 Oct 1970

Date

1967

Credit Line

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Jack Banning

Medium

Color lithographic poster

Dimensions

Image: 49 x 33.5cm (19 5/16 x 13 3/16")

Sheet: 50.8 x 35cm (20 x 13 3/4")

Mat size: custom (TBD)

Type

Print