Chuck Sperry

Chuck Sperry (born February 5, 1962) is an American artist best known for his screen prints on paper and oak panel, his limited-edition rock posters for bands such as Widespread Panic and Pearl Jam, and his political protest art. Since 1985, Sperry's iconography has ranged from astronauts walking on the surface of the Moon to portraits of performers as varied as Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and Chrissie Hynde. Beginning in 2010, many of Sperry's prints have featured images of female muses from Greek mythology.

Early life Family Chuck Sperry was born on February 5, 1962, in Dayton, Ohio, to Sally and John Sperry, who apprenticed to sculptor Robert Koepnik, who had apprenticed to Carl Milles, who had apprenticed to Auguste Rodin. Sperry says that watching his father make art was a source of great inspiration to him, and gave him license to consider an art career for himself. Sperry's mother was a regional advertising executive. Sally Sperry's rise from layout artist to advertising executive also made an impression on Chuck, who says he was inspired by her professional advancement during the 1960s and ’70s in a male-dominated profession.

Education Chuck Sperry hosting a Schoolab Workshop with UC Berkeley & École Polytechnique Students. Oakland, CA. June, 2017 During this period, Sperry attended art classes at the Living Arts Center in Dayton and the Dayton Art Institute. Briefly, he also contributed illustrations to the Columbia Daily Tribune.

Sperry was also influenced by Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist Mike Peters, who worked for the Dayton Daily News and was a friend of Sperry's parents. Thanks to that familial connection, Sperry sometimes visited Peters at his office in downtown Dayton, to show the editorial cartoonist portfolios of art, which Peters would critique.

Later in 1994, Sperry joined Ron Donovan and Orion Landau to found a rock-poster printing company called Psychic Sparkplug. Sperry, Donovan, and Landau were among the first modern rock-poster artists to use metallic gold and silver inks in the rock-poster genre. Grimshaw invited Sperry, Donovan, and Landau to attend the event.

That same year, Sperry, Grimshaw, and his wife, Laura, produced the first of two annual "Temporary Insanity" art shows at Off the Wall, a gallery on Haight Street in San Francisco, the first gallery exhibition in San Francisco of rock-poster art since the Joint Show at the Moore Gallery in 1967. Exhibiting artists included Victor Moscoso, Frank Kozik, Coop, Gary Grimshaw, John Seabury, Psychic Sparkplug, Mark Arminski, Lindsey Kuhn, Emek, Mats Stromberg, and Dennis Loren.

In 1996, Sperry worked with Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) on two painted murals in collaboration with artists Barry McGee, Ruby Neri, Rigo 23, Aaron Noble, Isis Rodriguez, Susan Greene, John Fadeff, and many other artists representing San Francisco's Mission School Movement.

By 1997, Psychic Sparkplug had dissolved and reformed as the Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company, book titled Color x Color: The Sperry Poster Archive would be released during the exhibition. The book includes more than 800 color illustrations and includes essays by Charles Bock and Carlo McCormick. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the book was released on its own and the show was postponed.

Touring and exhibiting Taking his work on the road has been a recurring part of Sperry's artistic practice since 1999. During the last two decades, Sperry has traveled the world with his art, showing in individual exhibitions at music venues, activist social centers, and galleries. London, Rome, Geneva, Berlin, Athens, Buenos Aires, and Belgrade.

Collectors peruse limited edition prints made available for sale at Chuck Sperry's opening reception of "Heaven of Many a Tangled Hue" at Spoke Art Gallery, San Francisco, CA. April, 2018.

In 2013, Sperry created an art installation in a seaside chapel on a promontory square visible around the Golfo de Poeti in the village of Tellaro, Italy. He transformed the church into a temple of the muses, projected onto the face of the church a psychedelic liquid light show commissioned for the occasion of Grateful Dead light show maestro Bill Ham, and played a specially commissioned musical accompaniment by The Young Gods singer and composer, Franz Treichler.

In 2014, Sperry's poster art was exhibited as a part of La Fête du Graphisme sponsored by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication and the Paris City Council. For that event, an exhibition titled "Gig Posters: 150 Affiches Underground Américaines Contemporaines" was displayed at Les Docks Cité de la Mode et du Design in Paris.

In 2022, a retrospective called "Color X Color," which featured more than 150 examples of Sperry's work of the past 25 years, opened at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana. The show was curated by Josef Zimmerman and was accompanied by an essay by Carlo McCormick.

Other media In 2011, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art invited Sperry, Donovan, and Chris Shaw to create original painted artworks for the Window Gallery, a space that adorned a wall of the museum at that time. Sperry painted an 11’ x 9’ acrylic painting titled "Saint Everyone," which incorporated screen-printed elements.

In 2016 and 2018, Sperry worked with musician, songwriter, and performer Nick Cave, who offered Sperry lyric choices from his oeuvre to be illustrated by Sperry as a diptych of skateboards released by Fast Times Skateboarding of Melbourne, Australia.

Collectors and fans line up around the block for Chuck Sperry's opening reception of "Heaven of Many a Tangled Hue" at Spoke Art Gallery, San Francisco, California. April, 2018.

In 2018, Sperry's first museum solo exhibition, "All Access, Exploring Humanism in the Art of Chuck Sperry", at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art included three large-scale tapestry art pieces created by Taller Mexicano des Gobelinos of Guadalajara, Mexico (the studio has executed commissioned work from artists Francesco Clemente, Sandro Chia, John Currin, George Condo, Damian Ortega, and Karen Kilimnik).

Over the years, Sperry has created book covers for HarperCollins, Random House, and Harvard University Press. These include cover designs for Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer, by Chris Salewicz, 2006; Beautiful Children, by Charles Bock, 2009; and the 20th Anniversary edition of Lipstick Traces, The Secret History of the 20th Century, by Greil Marcus, 2009.

Political activism Sperry was the Dean of Art for the Free University of San Francisco from 2011 to 2015. The school was conceived by writer Alan Kaufman and its teachers have included San Francisco mayoral candidate and artist Matt Gonzalez, poet Diane Di Prima, and poet laureate Jack Hirschman. Sperry created a program of street art, and invited graffiti artist Blek le Rat, illustrator and performer Eric Drooker, punk collage artist Winston Smith, street artist and skate activist Jon Paul Bail, and rock poster artist Chris Shaw to be guest lecturers.

In 2011, Sperry created a poster titled "This Is Our City and We Can Shut It Down" for Occupy Oakland. One thousand posters were printed, most of which were distributed to protestors on November 2, when the action closed the Port of Oakland. In 2012, Sperry's poster was included in the "Occupy Bay Area" exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The poster was also included in an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art called "Get with the Action: Political Posters from the 1960s to Now," which ran from the fall of 2017 to the spring of 2018. Other artists included in this exhibition were Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey, Robbie Conal, Corita Kent, and Wes Wilson.

Chuck Sperry in his Oakland studio. Oakland, CA. March, 2018

Since 2014, Sperry has donated several print editions to an environmental action group called PangeaSeed. Sales of prints in each edition raised funds for education and the mitigation of climate change upon the world's ocean environment.

In March 2017, Sperry designed an official "March for Science" poster, collaborating with Albert Lin, a National Geographic Explorer and the Chief Science Officer for Planet3. All proceeds from the sale of Sperry's poster went to Planet3, while many others were distributed for free to schools nationwide to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. A free download was also available.

Other Sperry posters created to have a socio-political impact include the offset posters he designed in 2017, 2018, and 2019 for Women's March events in California, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Many of these posters were distributed by The Outrage, the official merchandise outlet for the Women's March. Sales of the posters via The Outrage raised funds for Planned Parenthood. Sperry's 2017 Women's March poster, "Resist Sexism, Racism, Xenophobia, Homophobia, Ignorance, Corruption and Hate," is in the permanent collection of the United States Library of Congress.

Sperry's Conscious Alliance poster for a series of String Cheese Incident concerts in 2017 at Red Rocks, Colorado, raised money and generated food donations, which were later distributed to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to give relief to the Oglala Sioux people.

Books Monographs Eyesore: Recent Litter by The Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company High Volume: The Art of Chuck Sperry Helikon, The Muses of Chuck Sperry Chthoneon, The Art of Chuck Sperry Color x Color: The Sperry Poster Archive

Other books World War 3 Illustrated: 1980-1988 Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion Tiki Art Now! A Volcanic Eruption of Art Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo Moonalice Legend (Posters and Words, Volume 1) The Art of British Rock: 50 Years of Rock Posters, Flyers and Handbills Gig Posters Volume 2: Rock Show Art of the 21st Century Poster Children: The Art of Widespread Panic, 1986-2013 The Outlaw Bible of American Art The Wes Anderson Collection: Bad Dads: Art Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson Posters for Change: Tear, Paste, Protest: 50 Removable Posters