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After leaving the Navy and settling in San Francisco, David Singer supported himself with odd jobs and began experimenting with graphic art and collage. In 1968, he was encouraged by a fellow poster artist to visit the office of Bill Graham, the director of the Fillmore West concert venue, where he was offered a job. Singer’s work was a significant shift from the work of previous artists because his designs were more simple and readable, incorporating collage techniques and surrealist influences. Of all the artists, Singer produced the largest body of work for the Fillmore, creating sixty posters between 1969 and 1971.Label Type
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Famously, the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s was closely tied with anti-Vietnam War sentiments. The illustration on this poster, done by Wilfried Sätty and adapted by Singer, depicts Uncle Sam marshaling troops toward a single Vietnamese man. Many hippies saw authoritarian power as the cause of problems in society, and perhaps naïvely, they believed most things could be solved by simply loving everyone. Imagery that expresses both the ideal of free love and the critique of government-funded war permeates the poster art of this period, reflecting the musical messages of the bands these pieces advertised.