Home » City Guide »

50th Anniversary Art Show “Summer of Love” 1967

A special art show at City Hall celebrating 1967
By - posted 1/22/2017 No Comment


The San Francisco Arts Commission presents an extensive exhibition of work by legendary 60s rock ‘n’ roll photographer Jim Marshall and a new Market Street Poster Series featuring contemporary perspectives on the Summer of Love by local artists

As part of a citywide celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) will offer two opportunities for the public to reflect on this historical event.

  • Opening on January 26, 2017 at City Hall, Jim Marshall: Summer of Love features 80 works by the iconic photographer taken during his time in San Francisco in the 1960s. The opening reception is at San Francisco City Hall: Ground Floor + North Light Court banners. Free and open to the public.
  • Starting in spring 2017, the Arts Commission’s popular Art on Market Street Poster Series will explore the Summer of Love and its cultural impact through contemporary work by local artists Sarah Hotchkiss, Kate Haug and Deborah Aschheim.

The popular Art on Market Street Poster Series features new work by local artists on an annual basis shown in the bus kiosks along Market Street between the Embarcadero and 8th Street. With the advent of the 50th anniversary, the Arts Commission invited artists to reexamine the Summer of Love.

The selected artists, Sarah Hotchkiss, Kate Haug and Deborah Aschheim will each present very distinct takes on the event.

  • Hotchkiss examines the “diverse Bay Area political, cultural and social scenes of 1967” through local mainstream and underground media published during that period, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, Haight Ashbury Free Press and the Black Panther’s Black Community News Service.
  • Haug’s posters are a series of Sumer of Love trading cards featuring an array of personalities who were influential in the Bay Area during the Summer of Love era, including Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsburg, poet Lenore Kandel, Joan Baez, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Emory Douglas and others.
  • Aschheim explores the “intersection of political and social utopian ideas that drew people to San Francisco” through detailed pen and ink drawings of protestors, the Diggers and the Black Panther community.