Years after his successful liver operation, Shakedown Gallery approached Mouse to ask if they could put a tab on the tongue and make a blotter art design from his piece. The original sketch had the tongue hanging out with no tab or cube on it. Mouse titled this parody " I Need A New Liver ". The original painting was done in 1992 before Stanley received his new liver. This piece was designed as a clever parody of his classic interpretation of the Edmund Sullivan Skull and Roses design he and Alton Kelley had made famous in the Avalon Ballroom Grateful Dead poster. The visual repertoire of our collective experience has been made rich and beautiful through Stanley’s art.Before his life as a psychedelic poster artist, Stanley Mouse painted Monster Cars in Detroit. The hot rods, monsters, rock icons and lush oil paintings stand united by way of the artists creative journey and tell tales of American culture through the decades. Stanley Mouse is a revered elder in that tribe, lately contributing to the movement with new and classic monsters and rat-rod art.Ī recent show at the Marin Museum of Art featuring Stanley’s work in full-circle format made clear the scope and genius of his art. A significant revival of interest in hot rods and a new subculture is springing up around the aesthetic of the hot rod genre. Today some old friends have returned to Mouse’s palette: rock and roll and hot rod art and monsters. His landscapes and figurative works express the more subtle and finer aspects of life and round out his body of work with depth and beauty. Stanley went on to explore fine art and took up classical art forms and oil painting. In a local ceremony, Stanley was honored and named as the Sonoma Art Treasure in 1994. Bonham’s of London conducted an auction where Stanley’s artwork was incredibly well received in 1998. Stanley’s artwork is included in private and public collections including the Oakland Museum and The Hermitage. The University of Santa Barbara Art Museum.The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.Stanley was honored having his posters in museum shows around the world : The cover art for Steve Millers album Book of Dreams won a Grammy Award in 1977. In all, Mouse and Kelley did the first eight album covers for the Grateful Dead, including the delightful Ice Cream Kid/Rainbow Foot cover of their Europe 72 live album. Then on to Jimi Hendrix, Journey, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Blind Faith. Art and music came together in images associated with the The Family Dog, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Steve Miller. The art promoting the San Francisco scene became instant collectibles and went far beyond the local scene to reach museums worldwide. He produced posters for the Fillmore Auditorium and the Avalon Ballroom. Stanley designed with Art Nouveau elegance and American pop-art sensibilities. That art morphed into several covers for Journey, including Infinity, Escape and Captured. Kelley and Mouse were working on a Jimi Hendrix cover but Jimi died before it was released. From there he did art for Blind Faith and the Beatles and returned to America to work on the signage at Woodstock with Kelley. In the late sixties Stanley moved from San Francisco to London to flame Eric Clapton’s Rolls Royce. In 1970 Stanley returned to Detroit and was given a one man show at the Detroit Institute of Art. They captured the passion and excitement of the times with their distinctive styles. Kelley and Mouse were innovators of the most important art movement of the latter part of the twentieth century. Two of their most famous images, one featuring ZigZag cigarette rolling papers and another, the Grateful Dead skeleton and roses motif, became symbols of a generation. History was made when Stanley met Alton Kelley – they collaborated for over 15 years and changed the course of advertising art forever. He dropped out to follow a higher calling to do rock posters in San Francisco during the sixties wartime era of social revolution, political passion and musical innovation. Stanley received his formal training at Detroit’s School for the Society of Arts and Crafts which was connected to the Detroit art museum. Mouse at the Detroit Institute of Art 1970 In the tenth grade, Stanley did some graffiti on the high school hang out and was expelled from high school, the silver lining being that he then enrolled in art school. Soon after, he began applying his favorite subjects to T-shirts with an airbrush. Stanley found a niche in the Detroit hot rod culture by detailing extraordinary paint jobs on vehicles until no quality hot rod in town could be seen without a Mouse pin-striping job.
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