UFO Coming (1967) by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat.
It’s always difficult to choose a favourite from the posters that Nigel Waymouth and the late Michael English produced under the name Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, their standards remained high (so to speak) throughout their partnership. But I always liked the ejaculating penis butterfly on this early design for Joe Boyd’s UFO club, a detail which would have given Aubrey Beardsley a chuckle and which is probably unique in art. The gorgeous Hapshash posters receive another airing next month in an exhibition at the Idea Generation Gallery, London, entitled Hapshash Takes a Trip: The Sixties Work of Nigel Waymouth:
Waymouth’s own archive plays a major part in the retrospective. Kept privately for decades and rarely seen since their first creation in the late ’60s, the artist’s personal collection features works made as part of Hapshash and his designs for Granny Takes a Trip. Furthermore it contains his own album covers, photographs, press clippings and magazines. This extraordinary collection unites rare works with rare moments, through photographs never before seen in public.
The exhibition opens on September 9th. There’s more detail on the press release (PDF) including a promise that “Huge silk-screened reproductions of their iconic posters will fill the entirety of one of the Gallery’s soaring 20 foot walls.”
The exhibition title alludes to the celebrated King’s Road boutique Granny Takes A Trip whose series of striking shopfronts were decorated by Waymouth before and during his partnership with Michael English. The Look posted some pictures of Waymouth’s 1947 Dodge decor earlier this week.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Dukes declare it’s 25 O’Clock!
• Psychedelic Wonderland: the 2010 calendar
• Michael English, 1941–2009
• Max (The Birdman) Ernst
• The Look presents Nigel Waymouth
• The New Love Poetry
Some things are absolutely Anglo-Saxon, and this is one, the care you have had with graphic design
Thanks for the heads up on this exhibition, Mr Coulthart. I’ll certainly make an effort to get to London to see it: I’ve always been a big fan of Hapshash and the Coloured Coat. Your post prompted me to dig out their poster which I bought at an Incredible String Band concert when I was a callow youth way back in the 1960s. Would that I had remained in such good condition as the poster has over the years! Ah well, “Be glad for the song has no ending”
If I could afford any I’d want to buy some Hapshash originals. I saw many of them in the wonderful Summer of Love exhibition at Tate Liverpool in 2005 although the effect there was rather overwhelming since they were displayed with a host of other work by their Californian contemporaries. This new London show may be a better prospect.
ejaculating penis butterfly
That will be the name of my next band.