A beautiful silkscreened concert poster advertising a show by the Velvet Underground, Taj Mahal and White Lightning at Washington University in St. Louis, May 11, 1969.  This poster was part of Velvet’s guitarist Sterling Morrison’s legendary archive.

Robert Quine, later guitarist for Richard Hell and the Voidoids and a Lou Reed sideman, was a student at Washington University, and recorded this show (with two songs released on the 2001 Velvets box set The Quine Tapes.)  In the liner notes, he recalled Somebody was setting up a concert at Washington University in St. Louis, where I was going to law school, and I turned him onto The Velvet Underground, so he had them come out there…I had just bought my first cassette recorder, a Sony with a hand-held microphone. Despite a lousy P.A. system and a very echoey basketball gym, the concert was great, the high point being the performance of “Sister Ray”included in this set.”

The poster measures 35 3/8″ x 18″ and is printed on textured paper with gold metallic ink.  There are three variants of this poster, printed on red and black paper with different color inks; we think this is the most attractive (all are illustrated in Johan Kugelberg’s essential book The Velvet Underground: New York Art.).

We acquired this directly from Sterling Morrison’s widow, Martha Morrison.  After 40 plus years in storage, the poster had become brittle and the bottom right portion had come loose; we had it expertly restored and rice paper backed, and it now looks absolutely spectacular.  Our written lifetime guarantee of authenticity will note this was formerly owned by Sterling Morrison.

An extraordinary Velvet Underground collectible with impeccable provenance.