Victor Moscoso was a talented, influential artist of the counterculture ’60s era. He pioneered the vibrating colors optical effects technique in psychedelic posters, creating unique visual experiences. He bent and twisted letters into a plethora of shapes, making them as artistic as the imagery, producing posters that rocked as hard as the bands they advertised.

He became active in concert posters in the fall of 1966 and made his mark with adventurous choices. Moscoso perfected the vibrating colors technique in which bold, highly saturated color schemes are drawn with their edges directly adjacent. The vivid colors appear to merge, blur, and glow which produces the illusion of vibration. In addition to choosing contrasting colors, he had an eye for making their intensity and value equal to the point that viewers can’t tell which color is in front of the other. The vibrating colors created an appearance that could be likened to flashing neon lights.

Rebelling against some of his academic training, Moscoso created complex lettering that was challenging to read. His lettering became part of the art blanketing the space on the posters. Making the message of the poster complex in concert with his use of vibrating colors created attention catching posters.

He produced provocative pieces for Family Dog dances-concerts at the Avalon Ballroom and was one of the earliest artists to use photographic collages in his posters.

During the Summer of Love his Neon Rose posters for the Matrix earned him international attention. The first of the big five psychedelic poster artists to create his own line of poster, Moscoso’s Neon Rose pieces are covered in contrasting neon, vibrating colors, 3-D effects, and transposed light and dark tones. The gorgeous Neon Rose series is among the most revered and coveted in the psychedelic era.

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