Janis Rocks!

Born on this day, 1960s rock legend Janis Joplin (1943–1970) first drew attention with the group Big Brother and the Holding Company, and subsequently with Kozmic Blues Band and Full Tilt Boogie Band. Learn more about Joplin's life and music by visiting our online exhibition Posters American Style.

At a dance at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, [Victor] Moscoso saw rock posters and decided that he could "make some money doing posters for those guys." In 1966 he began designing posters for the Family Dog and also produced posters for the Avalon Ballroom. Under his own imprint, Neon Rose, he did a series for Matrix, a local night spot. Moscoso's style is most notable for its visual intensity, which is obtained by manipulating form and color to create optical effects. Moscoso's use of contrasting colors and vibrating edges was influenced by painter Josef Albers, his teacher at Yale. Given Moscoso's sophistication, it is not surprising that he was the first of the rock poster artists to use photographic collage.

Source: Therese Thau Heyman. Posters American Style. (New York and Washington, D.C.: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with the National Museum of American Art, 1998).

Pictured: Victor Moscoso (born 1936); Neon Rose, Big Brother and the Holding Company,1967, color lithograph, 20 x 13 3/4 in., Collection of Mr. and Mrs. W. Robert Johnston, © Victor Moscoso ....