Six Decades of Lyrical Compositions by Hatch Show Print 2025 Visiting Artist Earl Newman

An exhibition of work spanning the career of prolific poster artist Earl Newman opens Thursday, September 18, at Haley Gallery.

West coast poster artist Earl Newman is Hatch Show Print’s 2025 Visiting Artist. His long and colorfully embellished career in poster-making was built on an early start as a commercial artist in Massachusetts and flourished on the west coast starting in the 1960s. He is most often recognized for the posters he designed and printed for the Monterey Jazz Festival through six decades of rich collaboration with the festival.

Through the medium of silkscreen, also known as serigraphy, Earl has been able to reproduce his designs in volume, usually one hundred at a time. To Earl, it is like having that many canvases on which to experiment, using different colors of paper and inks, varying the color blends as he goes along. Thus, no two prints are alike. Earl also uses a low-tech approach to gig poster printing, making hand-cut stencils to build up the layers of color behind the key line art.

When it came time to make some collaborative pieces, instead of Earl, press in tow, traveling to Nashville to make work, the prints have been flying across the country, for every single layer of ink that is put down on them. Two editions of collaborative prints along with a selection of larger pieces that started as prints and were finished as paintings by Earl celebrate the historical and musical connections between Hatch Show Print and Earl Newman.

Join us for the Opening Reception from 5 – 8 on September 18 in Haley Gallery, and if you want to try your hand at Earl’s unique way of screen printing, using stencils, join us for a very special workshop on Saturday, September 20!