The San Francisco Poster Co. history

The San Francisco Poster Co.
In the period between 1965 and 1971 in San Francisco There was an outburst of graphic creativity that is unparalleled in American art. Drawn by a handful of now well-known artists as well as a legion of lesser known ones, this work is known as Psychedelic Rock Concer Poster Art.At the heart of the early part of this era, 1966-1967 , was the print shop known as The Bindweed Press.The Bindweed Press was the DBA of a printer named Frank Westlake. Westlake personally printed several dozen of the best-known early San Francisco psychedelic posters including many original printings of the most famous early Family Dog images for concerts at the Avalon Ballroom as well as many posters and handbills for other local San Francisco venues such as Winterland.Among these are the world famous, iconic Skeleton and roses image for the Grateful Dead at the Avalon, Family Dog No.26, Frankenstein, also for the Dead at the Avalon,family Dog No. 22 and the Zig-Zag man for Big brother and the Holding company at the Avalon, Family Dog No. 14. All of these bear the bottom margin notation “The Bindweed Press “ Considering that the thaught of these as disposable advertising and the paper stock he used was a low-cost vellum, Westlake did a remarkably good job printing these posters. The colors are vibrant, and the minor imperfections were seen as part of the raw energy pulsating through san Francisco in that era. Like most printers Westlake held onto his printing plates after the jobs were completed, and on numerous occasions he reprinted early Family Dog posters at the request of the late Chet Helms who owned the DBA “The Family Dog.” This was often done with the original printing plates.
There is no controversy about any of the above. Posters from the Bindweed Press Unquestionably are original printings, ones printed preconcert with the intention of distributing at least part of the press run to advertise the event, or authorized reprints, ones printed after the concert under the auspices of the concert promotor to sell in retail outlets. This is in contrast to pirate/bootleg posters or forgeries. Bootleg or pirate posters are the work of people not associated with either the concert promoter or the artists or any of the performers, people who take a copy of a poster, shoot photographs of it and use these photographs to produce new printing plates with which they print new posters which they seek to sell cheaply for quick profit without paying licensing fees for their products. Because these are done without access to the original artists’ drawings or the original printing plates, these typically are poorly printed, fuzzy, coarse and poorly colored. These are not designed to fool people that they are buying originals, and they are not sold for prices that originals would bring. Usually they are printed in large quantities. forgeries are printed in small quantities with the specific intention of fooling serious collectors into paying prices they would for originals. Every attempt is made to match the original in colors and paper stock.
which brings us to the confusing case of The San Francisco Poster Co. which falls into the “noneof the above” category. Sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s Frank Westlake closed TheBindweed press and moved to England. He took with him many of the printing plates for psychedelic posters he had printed. he decided to make some money by printing these posters and selling them. He removed the Bindweed Press credits and replaced them with San Francisco Poster co. credits. These posters fall into two groups, Ones done for the Family Dog and ones done for other venues.
The exact status of these posters is difficult to pin down. None were authorized by the artists who created them, the promoters who commissioned them or the acts which appeared on them, but unlike pirates or bootlegs they were printed with the original plates so they are not of poor printing quality. Furthermore on the non-family Dog items he matched the colors rather well so that if one does not mind the ethical issues of buying unauthorized printings, these are a bargain and often collectible in there own right as variants which were printed not long after the events. In at least some cases the images were never copyrighted so it is reasonable to ask if any laws or ethical matters enter into the equation at all.
The Family Dog images constitute an even more complex dilemma. Here in most cases for reasons best known to himself Westlake chose to print the posters in colors drastically different from the originals. To say the least none of the artists of the family Dog series is any too pleased about this alteration of his work, But they remain interesting, well-printed if bizarrely colored oddities with a collectibility of their own. further complicating this was a long-running personal dispute between Westlake and Helms. The reason that the Bindweed press stopped printing Family dog posters and handbills is that Helms owed Westlake substantial bills that never were paid. Weatlake felt strongly that under these circumstances he had every right to use his personal property (The printing plates in this case remained Westlakes lawful property.) to recoup his unpaid debt from Helms by printing and selling Helms’ images. Needless to say Helms felt his properly copyrighted material was off-limits for this type of “debt collection. “ This matter was never resolved, but collectors continue to add these posters to their collections. So long as the buyer is properly informed about the intricate and controvesial history of this material , It has long been accepted to buy and/or sell it. It is over 35 years old and by vertue of its age and increasing rarity (it was never common in the U.S.A and is now fairly difficult to find outside this stash) It has attained its own unique cachet. If someone tried to do this now, they would be sued immediatly, but that is now and this was then.