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{{Short description|American artist (1939–2020)}}{{Use American English|date=February 2020}}{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2020}}

factoids

| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.20200412mf=y}}Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania>Newtown, Pennsylvania, U.S.Bill Graham (promoter)>Bill Graham (divorced)}}Bonnie MacLean (December 28, 1939  â€“ February 4, 2020), also known as Bonnie MacLean Graham,WEB,weblink Bonnie MacLean, 2014, The Rock Poster Society, June 29, 2017, was an American artist known for her classic rock posters. In the 1960s and 1970s she created posters and other art for the promotion of rock and roll concerts managed by Bill Graham, using the iconic psychedelic art style of the day. MacLean continued her art as a painter focusing mostly on nudes, still lifes, and landscapes. Her work has been placed alongside the "big five"—male Haight-Ashbury poster artists who were seminal to the "iconography of the counterculture scene."

Early life

Bonnie MacLean was born on December 28, 1939, in Philadelphia,WEB,weblink Bonnie MacLean, SFMOMA, June 29, 2017, and grew up in nearby Trenton, New Jersey.NEWS,weblink Bonnie MacLean, April 22, 2016, (FAMSF) Explore the Art, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, June 29, 2017, She graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1961 with a degree in French. She moved to New York after graduating college, where she worked at the Pratt Institute and took drawing classes in the evenings. MacLean moved to San Francisco in 1963, where she met Bill Graham who had been her boss at her office job at Allis-Chalmers.WEB,weblink Bonnie MacLean | Biography & History, AllMusic, BOOK,weblink Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock And Out, Graham, Bill, Greenfield, Robert, Da Capo Press, 1992, 0306813491, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Throughout her life MacLean continued to study art, taking courses at the Academy of Art University, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the California College of Arts and Crafts.WEB, 2020-02-26, Bonnie MacLean,weblink 2021-03-06, FAMSF Search the Collections, en,

Fillmore posters

Artist Wes Wilson was the main poster artist for The Fillmore when he and Bill Graham had a "falling out" and Wilson quit. MacLean had been painting noticeboards at the auditorium in the psychedelic style, and took up the creation of the posters after Wilson left, creating more than thirty posters, most in 1967.NEWS, Morsch, Mike, A True Rock Artist: Rock poster legend Bonnie MacLean has created a new work for the Fillmore Philly,weblink April 13, 2016, Packet Media Group, centraljersey.com, September 24, 2015, {{dead link|date=February 2020}}WEB,weblink Bonnie MacLean, Cushway, Phil, Art of the Dead, live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150813115659weblink">weblink August 13, 2015, February 15, 2020, Some of her posters have been sold for $10,000, and are highly valued in the collectors' market.Using {{convert|14|×|21|inch}} boards, her concert posters were "vivid, hand-drawn bills" in an Art Nouveau style. She developed her own motif, with "elaborate plumes, curving letters and stoic faces." MacLean's style was inspired by imagery of the Medieval Gothic era, such as circular stained glass windows and pointed arches.WEB, Correspondent, Ed Condran, It's still rock 'n' roll to her,weblink 2021-04-24, Bucks County Courier Times, en, During her four-year run at the Fillmore, she rendered posters for Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Santana, The Allman Brothers Band, The Doors, The Who, and The Yardbirds. Getting concert attendance was her first goal. As she told the Bucks County Courier Times, "I could do what I wanted, but the object was for people to notice the poster and hopefully come out." She was a "driving force" in the San Francisco rock music scene, and her posters were instrumental in promoting The Fillmore Auditorium's success.The Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era" exhibition began in 2005 at the Tate Liverpool, and in 2007 the exhibition traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art which showcased her posters.WEB,weblink Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era, whitney.org, 2020-02-21, Her favorite poster was "BG #75" which displays an orange and blue color peacock and its elaborate tail with white and green accents around a human face. Next to it were the names of famous bands all scheduled to perform at The Fillmore in San Francisco – the Yardbirds, the James Cotton Blues Band, Richie Havens and the Doors.NEWS, Genzlinger, Neil,weblink Bonnie MacLean, Psychedelic Poster Artist, Is Dead at 80, February 20, 2020, The New York Times, February 21, 2020, 0362-4331, In 2015, she reprised her earlier work to commemorate the opening of the Philadelphia Fillmore.Her posters are iconic. MacLean's posters are included in many museum collections including at the Brooklyn Museum,WEB,weblink Artist: MacLean, Brooklyn Museum, live,weblink July 24, 2016, February 14, 2020, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco collection and at the De Young Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. MacLean's artwork was a part of the 2013–2014 exhibition, Designing Modern Women 1890–1990 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.WEB, Designing Modern Women 1890–1990 {{!, MoMA|url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1369|access-date=2021-04-02|website=The Museum of Modern Art|language=en}}

Personal life

MacLean and Bill Graham married on June 11, 1967. They had one child, David Wolodia Graham, born in 1968. MacLean and Graham eventually separated, after sustaining many strains on their relationship, such as Graham's extramarital affairs and missing of their son's birth. After several years of separation, they divorced in 1975.MacLean returned to Pennsylvania in 1972. In 1981, she married painter Jacques Fabert (1925–2013), who she'd met in 1971 when he was her art teacher. She lived in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania.NEWS,weblink Bonnie MacLean, Poster Artist & Wife of Bill Graham, Commissioned For New Fillmore Work, VVN Music, June 29, 2017, MacLean died on February 4, 2020, at age 80, at the Buckingham Valley Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Newtown, Pennsylvania. No cause of death was reported.NEWS,weblink Bonnie Maclean, pioneering rock poster artist and wife of Bill Graham, dies at 80, Vaziri, Aidin, February 12, 2020, San Francisco Chronicle, Datebook, San Francisco Arts & Entertainment Guide, While Maclean was not recognized among the 'big five' Haight-Ashbury poster artists who came to be associated with the iconography of the counterculture scene — Wes Wilson, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin — she stood out as one of the only women in the field., WEB,weblink Legendary Rock Poster Artist Bonnie MacLean Dead at 80, February 12, 2020, Paste Magazine pastemagazine.com, February 13, 2020,

References

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