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"If he hadn't been the poster artist for the counterculture, he
could have been its poster child." --Michigan’s 100 Greatest
Artists and Entertainers of the Twentieth Century Listing Published
by The Detroit Free Press, December 12, 1999 .
Gary Grimshaw was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1946 and graduated
from nearby Lincoln Park High School; He has created art work since
the age of twenty -that’s forty five years of continuously producing
music-related graphic art, and counting. Most recently Gary
completed work on the Concert of Colors 2011 poster and several PJ’s
Lager House posters. He has a healthy job list going and appreciates
interest in his past body of work as well.
At the start of his career Gary became well known as the Grande
Ballroom artist and later as the MC5 artist. He became part of a
dynamic collective of intellectuals, promoters, poets, artists,
musicians -people that spent many years together in some form or
another. For instance, as a Vietnam veteran he was an anti-war
activist with special interests; a key player in the White Panther
Party who worked to reform unfair law and unjust incarcerations. He
worked on newspapers, magazines, did posters to advertise music
events, did record album covers. Gary worked with Underground Press
Syndicate icons The San Francisco Oracle and the Ann Arbor Sun. Gary
is working to complete a book with Leni Sinclair that documents this
part of the history of Detroit. It features a small sample of his
prolific output during the first fifteen or so years of his career.
The Ann Arbor Sun will be electronically available through the Ann
Arbor District Public Library online as part of the celebration
planned around the 40th Anniversary of the Free John Now! Concert
featuring John Lennon. That’s another current project on Gary’s job
list – a poster to commemorate the upcoming series of events in Ann
Arbor 2011 to mark the December anniversary.
Gary worked at the rock
and roll magazine CREEM as an associate art director and in San
Francisco as art director of Art Rock Gallery. |
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His work has shown at
the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Toledo Art Museum, the College
for Creative Studies, the Flint Institute of Arts, The Eastern
Michigan University premier art gallery; to mention a few; and he
has enjoyed recognition in print as well. A list of mentions and
reprints of his works in publications is not possible, but the big
watershed for Gary’s career came with the publication of a huge book
called The Art of Rock (Abbeville Press, 1988) which is generally
available as a mini book; and also an update on the subject of music
posters published by Chronicle Books in 2004, The Art of Modern
Rock.
Gary and his wife Laura spent 14 years in San Francisco and
Oakland, California. Gary continued to create art freelance and for
a few years they owned a little art shop called PaperSong. In 2004
they made Woodbridge Historic District in Detroit their new home,
coming full circle to the neighborhood that Gary spent his very
influential twenties and produced such a great body of art,
beginning in 1966.
Laura and Gary are re-launching Gary’s website
for online sales and focusing on opening a small gallery space by
the end of 2011. Check out www.garygrimshaw.com for updates.
Gary spends each day healing from a lost year of his life and is
grateful for being a Veteran of the United States Navy. He
appreciates all the angels who helped him pull through a
life-altering period of time. That list of Angels includes many dear
friends from the Grande years, the San Francisco years, the Ann
Arbor years, the Detroit years and even an original Navy buddy. A
generally reserved individual, Gary sincerely appreciates the
support surrounding him.
Gary is a Detroit original.
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