Randy Tuten
Biography
Randy Tuten (born 1946) is an American concert-poster artist who became Bill Graham's most prolific house designer from 1969 onward. Raised largely around Los Angeles, the self-taught Tuten was a surfer and cartoonist in the mold of Rick Griffin; he moved to San Francisco in 1967 and freelanced until Graham hired him in January 1969. His debut — a ship bursting through a red door for a Grateful Dead / Blood, Sweat & Tears / Spirit run at the Fillmore West, January 2–4, 1969 — is cataloged BG-154. Graham, famously hands-off with him, gave Tuten unusual latitude across more than two decades of work. His style is bold and graphic, often built on photographs and collage — ships, trains, automobiles — paired with revival-era display lettering. He collaborated with photographer Peter Pynchon and, later, fellow Fillmore artist David Singer, and kept making Bill Graham Presents posters long after the original Fillmore era.
Why They Matter
Tuten represents the second generation of the San Francisco poster scene — steeped in its Haight-Ashbury heritage but emerging just as the original "Big Five" wound down. Entering in January 1969, he became arguably the most prolific of the Fillmore-lineage artists, sustaining a career from the Fillmore West / Winterland years through decades of later commissions for Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, Springsteen and beyond. His eclectic, photo- and collage-driven style helped carry the house-poster tradition past the psychedelic 1960s into the modern concert-poster era.
Notable Works
- BG-154 Grateful Dead / Blood, Sweat & Tears / Spirit (Jan 2–4, 1969 — his first Bill Graham poster)
- BG-170 Led Zeppelin (April 1969 — the celebrated "avocado" poster, with P. Pynchon)
- BG-171 and BG-176 Grateful Dead (1969)
- collaborations with David Singer
- the de facto designer of Graham's Led Zeppelin posters; decades of later Bill Graham Presents work