David Schiller and Jim Michaelson posters

Dave Schiller Jefferson Airplane 2
There’s not too much info out there about David Schiller, he was American and produced these posters in the late 60s for Sparta Graphics. The company was born from the successful dance concert series that Dave promoted in San Jose in 1966. Fellow student Jim Michaelson submitted the winning poster in Dave’s poster competition and, in the years that followed from 1966-1968, they published 16 posters. Working with San Francisco promoters Bill Graham and Sid Bernstein they created concert posters for The Byrds, The Bee Gees, Buffalo Springfield and Jefferson Airplane among others. Some were printed with metallic inks and some with vivid fluorescent day-glo inks.

Michaelson obviously had a thing for crazy flying contraptions and the poster above was actually painted on wood and photographed with real flowers, it was one of Bill Graham’s favourite posters. It’s not clear whether this influenced Ron Cobb‘s illustration for the cover of the Jefferson Airplane’s ‘After Bathing At Baxter’s’ LP which was released late 1967 but Michaelson’s first gig poster for the band was made in 1966 (see below).
Michaelson passed away in 2019 but his son, Rob, maintains a website in his memory with many other great examples of his work, including posters for Disney https://jameslmichaelson.wixsite.com/artwork/the-60s

Dave Schiller Bee Gees
Dave Schiller Buffalo Springfield
Dave Schiller Monkees
Dave Schiller The Monkees
Dave Schiller the Rascals
Dave Schiller The Young Rascals
Dave Schiller Sunday Afternoon
The posters below are from some of the gigs David put on and, I presume, by the same graphic team.

Dave Schiller Eric Burdon
mojo-men-chocolate-watch-band-love-psychedelic-concert-p
Dave Schiller The Byrds
Dave Schiller Jefferson Airplane
Dave Schiller Syndicate of Sound
He also had a fine line in posters for cities and states – there are at least two variants of the New York poster in different colourways and with different mastheads. I’ve also seen these posters printed on linen.

Dave Schiller - California
Dave Schiller New York
Dave Schiller London
Dave Schiller San Francisco
Michaelson also did at least two calendars, variants of the same images for 1968 and 1969.

david-schiller-1968
david-schiller-1969
Sparta logo

One thought on “David Schiller and Jim Michaelson posters

  1. Hi I am seeking information regarding David Schiller and Sparta Graphics with a view to publishing his London map in a forthcoming map book. I understand that David passed away around 2019 possibly in Hawaii but I cannot find an obituary nor any reference to surviving family members. If anybody has any information regarding David including ideally contact info for any surviving family I would be very grateful to receive it. Thankyou

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