Product Description

Relive one of the most magical times in history, a time that saw profound cultural and spiritual change throughout the world, but nowhere more than in the San Francisco Bay of the mid to late 1960's. Author and photographer Gene Anthony was there, capturing every moment, every poem, every song, and every embrace on film. This photographic tour gets you up close and personal with musicians like Jim Morrison, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. It takes you inside the volatile demonstrations at the heart of the anti-war movement, the women's rights movement, the struggle for civil rights. From the Fillmore, to the Human Be-in, to the Trips Festival, Anthony has created a collection of work that captures the feeling of these once in a lifetime events in over 300 personal and passionate photographs.

Gene Anthony is a widely known and respected photographer. He shot film extensively in the '60s, capturing many of the most recognized images of political and social demonstrations, the Grateful Dead, the Doors, Ken Kesey, the Fillmore West, Allen Ginsberg, and many others. He has photographed for many publications throughout his career, including Newsweek, Time, Life, and Playboy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #606432 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A photography collection’s success depends as much on the text, design, layout and overall structure as it does on the quality of the photographs. Unfortunately, these elements do not coalesce in Anthony’s collection of images from San Francisco in the ’60s. While many of the photos are of iconic figures—Jimi Hendrix, Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, to name a few—all too often the images are overwhelmed by poorly planned layout and loud design, as if everything was randomly tossed onto the page. Photos of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane are placed against a green-and-white background with purple captions, and compete (unsuccessfully) with the facing page, a hodgepodge of purple, white, green and yellow. Presumably, the purpose here is to evoke psychedelia, but the result is more akin to nausea. It’s a shame, because some chapters do work, and they only serve to highlight the book’s weaknesses. The chapter on demonstrations and rallies, for example, shows how effective this book could have been. It’s laid out around a coherent theme and, instead of being accompanied by design chaos, the photos—depicting stern policemen and exuberant protestors—are allowed to speak for themselves. The text, which tends to push the images into the background, often comes off as naïve, lacking the perspective that time generally affords. While it’s understandable that Anthony would want to convey the period’s excitement, his prose possesses a breathless quality that can be grating. He writes, for instance, that the hippies’ "energy became a bubbling stew of new ideas and enthusiasm that emerged as a renaissance of the human spirit.... We were rejecting the synthetic, the industrial and plastic, for the natural, organic, and the whole earth. And the magic that was used to change it all was called ‘Flower Power.’" Though this volume will stir up fond memories for some readers, others will be put off by the language and layout. 300 Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Inside Flap
It was a time that changed the world, and celebrated photographer Gene Anthony was there, capturing every moment on film. The three hundred photos in Magic of the Sixties get you up close and personal with writers, activists, and musicians including Jim Morrison, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. The book takes you to the scene of demonstrations for the anti-Vietnam movement and the women's rights movement; offers insider photos of the Fillmore, the Human Be-in, and the Trips Festival; and follows everything from the amazing poster art to the advent of LSD.

Magic of the Sixties is a portrait of a time that rocked traditional values when anything seemed possible. With personal stories that chronicle the passion of the '60s, this book is an amazing tour through the freedom, hopes, and beliefs that defined an era and changed the world. It is sure to inspire a new generation to believe in themselves and remember that anything is possible.

About the Author
Gene Anthony studied photography under the tutelage of Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco in the late fifties. His professional career spans forty years. It began at Black Star, the New York photo agency, where Anthony worked on journalistic, architectural, and adverting photo assignments for major advertising agencies. He also did work for many publications including Life, Look, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, Playboy, Saturday Evening Post, Geo, and Paris Match among others. His work is part of the permanent collections in numerous museums including the Oakland Museum and the Smithsonian Institute. In recent years, Anthony has focused on video, film, and books. His book The Summer of Love is the story line for a prototype 53-minute multi-image video program designed for college and museum venues. His most recent photo assignment was photographing former president of the Hell's Angels, Ralph "Sonny" Barger, for RollingStone.

Gene Anthony studied photography under the tutelage of Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco in the late fifties. His professional career spans forty years. It began at Black Star, the New York photo agency, where Anthony worked on journalistic, architectural, and adverting photo assignments for major advertising agencies. He also did work for many publications including Life, Look, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, Playboy, Saturday Evening Post, Geo, and Paris Match among others. His work is part of the permanent collections in numerous museums including the Oakland Museum and the Smithsonian Institute. In recent years, Anthony has focused on video, film, and books. His book The Summer of Love is the story line for a prototype 53-minute multi-image video program designed for college and museum venues. His most recent photo assignment was photographing former president of the Hell's Angels, Ralph "Sonny" Barger, for RollingStone.

Customer Reviews

Terrific look at the magic
Gene Anthony's new book MAGIC OF THE SIXTIES is a terrific collection of his photographs, which with few exceptions were taken in and around San Francisco during that tumultuous decade. He certainly must have been out and about to have gotten all these, with photos from an incredible variety of venues including rock concerts, appeal parties, nude parties, the human be-in, the magic bus, office of "The San Francisco Oracle," apartment of poster artist Satty, activities of the Diggers, and much more. The epicenter of all this was the famous Height-Ashbury district. Other similar photo collections from the Sixties that I've seen do not have nearly the variety or organization into many topics that MAGIC OF THE SIXTIES has. Some famous faces Anthony captured include those of Grace Slick, Jimi Hendrix, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, and particularly famous images of George and Linda Harrison. The generous text is also by Anthony, and it's true that it is overly idealistic, yet the occasional launch into hyperbole (such as the excerpt quoted by Publisher's Weekly above) is rare, since most of the text is helpfully descriptive. Also, it's not all positive, as with the chapter on the Free Clinic, which he points out was focused on helping people with drug problems. I'm glad this book does focus on the idealism of the Sixties' counterculture in promoting love, peace, environmental protection, non-materialism, and the like, with the close of the book being especially apt:

"Now, as perhaps never in the years since the Sixties, we need to look back for solutions to present problems. We need to shake off our cloaks of powerlessness and apathy. The Sixties seem particularly fit for the task. It was magic, and it all really happened!"

Looking for solutions
Gene Anthony gives us a lot of personal recollections and adds to the growing volume of insight into a formative time. Some of the pictures are excellent. What I look for I found on the last page; these words: "Now, as perhaps never in the years since the sixties, we need to look back for solutions to present problems. We need to shake off our cloaks of powerlessness and apathy. The sixties seem particularly fit for the task. It was magic and it really happened!" I agree.
The inclussion of the Diggers and Morningstar is important. Here is the key: Service, sharing, compassion; one world, one love, one people. These ideas got a boost back then. They need another big boost now. My own book, "New Buffalo; Journals from a Taos Commune", offers insight also into a movement that should be huge. Let's get some farms and paint some buses and get this show back on the road! With love, Arty Kopecky