Blacklight Posters

In 1991 I went to New York to attend my great Uncle Belfield’s 95th birthday.

For the duration of the vacation I stayed with my Uncle Deuel and Aunty Lorraine in their house in Brooklyn. It was here that I first set eyes on my uncle’s small collection of Blacklight posters.

Adorning the walls of his den were these bold, funky and fluorescently colourful velvety images of 1970s Afro-American culture; depicting themes of a primarily ‘Black is Beautiful’ nature.

I fell in love with them too and my uncle very kindly let me take away a few.

I wholeheartedly intend to build on my small collection one day, but in the meantime here are some I have sourced from on the internet for your viewing pleasure.

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About Blacklight Posters:

A Blacklight poster is a poster printed with inks which fluoresce under black light. The inks used contain phosphors which cause them to glow when exposed to the ultra violet light emitted from black lights.

In the United States, blacklight posters are commonly found in head shops and other retail outlets that sell items associated with counter culture. Blacklight posters commonly depict images of psychedelia, musicians/bands, African-American and hippie culture.

 

Comments

2 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.
  1. swandiver,

    Yeah, it seems like in the early 90’s, people were building collections of African-American culture all the time. My father has quite the collection of what he calls “Negrobilia” from the early 20th century. I wonder what happened.

  2. Thanks Swandiver for the comments. Your father’s “Negrobilia” collection sounds very interesting. Warm regards Johnny

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