page_title: Chuck Sperry
section_title: Political activism
hierarchical_section_title: Chuck Sperry / Political activism
caption_attribution_description: English: Chuck Sperry in his Oakland studio. Oakland, CA. March, 2018
context_page_description: Chuck Sperry is an American artist best known for his screen prints on paper and oak panel, his limited-edition rock posters for bands such as Widespread Panic and Pearl Jam, and his political protest art. Since 1985, Sperry's iconography has ranged from astronauts walking on the surface of the moon to portraits of performers as varied as Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and Chrissie Hynde. Beginning in 2010, many of Sperry's prints have featured images of female muses from Greek mythology.
context_section_description: Sperry was the Dean of Art for the Free University of San Francisco from 2011 to 2015. The school was conceived by writer Alan Kaufman and its teachers have included San Francisco mayoral candidate and artist Matt Gonzalez, poet Diane Di Prima, and poet laureate Jack Hirschman. Sperry created a program of street art, and invited graffiti artist Blek le Rat, illustrator and performer Eric Drooker, punk collage artist Winston Smith, street artist and skate activist Jon Paul Bail, and rock poster artist Chris Shaw to be guest lecturers.
  In 2011, Sperry created a poster titled "This Is Our City and We Can Shut It Down" for Occupy Oakland. One thousand posters were printed, most of which were distributed to protestors on November 2, when the action closed the Port of Oakland. In 2012, Sperry's poster was included in the "Occupy Bay Area" exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The poster was also included in an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art called "Get with the Action: Political Posters from the 1960s to Now," which ran from the fall of 2017 to the spring of 2018. Other artists included in this exhibition were Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey, Robbie Conal, Corita Kent, and Wes Wilson.
  Since 2014, Sperry has donated several print editions to an environmental action group called PangeaSeed. Sales of prints in each edition raised funds for education and the mitigation of climate change upon the world's ocean environment.
  In March 2017, Sperry designed an official "March for Science" poster, collaborating with Albert Lin, a National Geographic Explorer and the Chief Science Officer for Planet3. All proceeds from the sale of Sperry's poster went to Planet3, while many others were distributed for free to schools nationwide to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. A free download was also available.
  Other Sperry posters created to have a socio-political impact include the offset posters he designed in 2017, 2018, and 2019 for Women's March events in California, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Many of these posters were distributed by The Outrage, the official merchandise outlet for the Women's March. Sales of the posters via The Outrage raised funds for Planned Parenthood. Sperry's 2017 Women's March poster, "Resist Sexism, Racism, Xenophobia, Homophobia, Ignorance, Corruption and Hate," is in the permanent collection of the United States Library of Congress.
  Sperry's Conscious Alliance poster for a series of String Cheese Incident concerts in 2017 at Red Rocks, Colorado, raised money and generated food donations, which were later distributed to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to give relief to the Oglala Sioux people.
caption: Chuck Sperry in his Oakland studio. Oakland, CA. March, 2018
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