Robert Fried Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1937 - d. 1975

Robert Fried (1937-1975) is best known for the psychedelic rock posters he created during San Francisco’s Summer of Love. He designed posters for The Charlatans, Canned Heat, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Mothers of Invention and many others. Fried’s posters are distinguished by his attempt to convey the feeling of time’s plasticity, the experience he had on LSD. In New York, Fried got his BA from Cooper Union, served as an assistant to Robert Motherwell, exhibited at the Brata Gallery and first met Timothy Leary. When he came to San Francisco to study at the Art Institute, he met Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin who introduced him to the poster scene. After publishing 18 posters, Fried turned to painting and fine art prints. He exhibited frequently in the Bay Area, and appeared in group shows at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha (1970), the College of Marin (1972), Santa Clara University (1973) and the Oakland Museum (1974). He also taught at the Art Institute and exhibited at its faculty shows. Fried received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for printmaking in 1974. That year Fried and five other Bay Area artists were commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Art (now the S.F. Museum of Modern Art) in a radically open ended plan to travel to Baja California and prepare materials for an exhibition reflecting their trip. Fried suffered a stroke and died on January 9, 1975, the same day as the opening night reception for the exhibition.