(#162) University Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive 25th Anniversary
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/

Edition of 1550 of which 125 copies are signed 1-125, 26 copies are signed A-Z as artist's proofs; eight are signed as dedication copies, and three sets are signed as progressives.

June 27 , 1995 17 x 24" 3 colors including copper foil (foil stamping done at Golden State Embossing)

Client: University Art Museum, 2625 Durant Avenue, Berkeley CA 94720, Telephone (510) 642-1208 and Pacific Film Archive, 2625 Durant Avenue, Berkeley CA 94720 Telephone: (510) 642-1412.

Dedication copies: Jacquelynn Baas, Stephen Gong, Louise Gund, Clark Kerr, Edith Kramer, Tom Luddy, Noel Nellis, Chang-Lin Tien. Progressives: One set to PFA, one set to UAM

The old University Art Museum, now a fire station, was the site of one of the most important graphic events of the 1960s: a show of Jugendstil posters, organized and curated by Herschel Chipp. I can't quite remember the exact date: it was in 1965 or 1966. This exhibition was seen by all of the people in San Francisco and Berkeley who were doing posters for the rock 'n' roll events of the time, and their very next posters were all but direct imitations of those of the Jugendstil, particularly reflecting the lettering of Ferdinand Andrei (President of the Vienna Secession in 1905), and Leopold Forstner of the Wiener Werkstätte, which were letters all made to fit into a square, or some other shape, and almost illegible. As a pressman, I printed some of the San Francisco artist's psychedelic posters, and later became a poster designer myself.

Paulene Kael founded the Berkeley Cinema Guild on Telegraph, a shop-front movie house that gave the Black Hole of Calcutta a run for its money. In the early 1960s, this is where I first saw silent classics, subtitled European art films and old American flicks, on cheap dates with girls as entranced as I was with the silver screen. Tom Luddy worked there, and in the late 'sixties became the program director for its offspring, the Telegraph Repertory Cinema. During one memorable show around the time of People's Park, the Telegraph Repertory Cinema was tear-gassed halfway through the film, and hand-in-hand my date and I dashed out the back door to take refuge from marauding Alameda County Sheriffs.

Sheldon Renan and Peter Selz-with a lot of help from other people-founded the Pacific Film Archive in 1970, and set it up in the brand new University Art Museum. In 1972 Sheldon Renan took on Tom Luddy as program director of the Archive. In late 1970 I set up Saint Hieronymus Press where it is now, and a few months later Alice Waters and her friends opened up Chez Panisse.

My first poster for PFA was in 1972, on a handshake deal with Tom Luddy that continued through 1983. He never saw the designs until the posters were delivered. I'd tack up new ones upstairs at Chez Panisse, and at night we'd all of us sit around and drink wine and be pals. I've been a printer and graphic designer now for thirty years last April. Alice is looking at the restaurant's 25th anniversary next year in August. Tom's dream is alive and well after a quarter-century, and the Art Museum's roof still leaks in the rain.