Victor Moscoso (born 1936 in Oleiros, Galicia, Spain) is a Galician-American artist best known for producing psychedelic rock posters, advertisements, and underground comix in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s.
Moscoso was the first of the rock poster artists of the 1960s era with formal academic training and experience. After studying art at Cooper Union in New York City and at Yale University, he moved to San Francisco in 1959. There, he attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where he eventually became an instructor.
Moscoso's use of vibrating colors was influenced by painter Josef Albers, one of his teachers at Yale. He was the first of the rock poster artists to use photographic collage in many of his posters.
Professional success came in the form of the psychedelic rock and roll poster art created for San Francisco's dance halls and clubs. Moscoso's posters for the Family Dog dance-concerts at the Avalon Ballroom and his Neon Rose posters for the Matrix resulted in international attention during the 1967 Summer of Love.
Within a year, Moscoso began doing work for underground comix. As one of the Zap Comix artists, his work once again received international attention. Moscoso's comix and poster work has continued up to the present and includes album covers for musicians such as Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Herbie Hancock, Jed Davis and David Grisman. Moscoso also created art for use on T-shirts, billboards and animated commercials for radio stations, for which he received two Clio awards.
Moscoso still lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
See also
- Robert Crumb
- Rick Griffin
- Alton Kelley
- Stanley Mouse
- Wes Wilson
External links
- Official website
- Steven Heller on Zap Comix
- Eric King's guide to rock and roll poster art from 1965-1973
- Lambiek.net notes on Moscoso
Interviews
- Comic Journal interview, 2002
- Marin Independent Journal interview, Sept. 2006
- video interviews from dead.net with Family Dog poster artists, 2010
