Item #5432 Where Charity & Love are, there is Jesus. Bevacqua.

Where Charity & Love are, there is Jesus

Bevacqua. Glendale, California: Posterwerks, 1972. Lithograph. 23 x 35 in. 1/2 in. tear at top left edge; else fine. Item #5432

San Francisco in the 1960s is most frequently associated with the hippie movement and the so-called "Summer of Love." A lesser known spiritual movement sprouted alongside it: a loose network of Evangelical groups eventually referred to as Jesus people or Jesus freaks (a term which, at the time, was not seen as pejorative). Although the movement first gained traction in San Francisco, particularly Haight-Ashbury, its nucleus quickly became Los Angeles. Leaders such as Arthur Blessitt and Tony and Susan Alamo set up shop on Sunset Strip, preaching on the street and opening coffee shops where converts congregated. As the posters in this list evidence, the movement embraced the prevailing countercultural aesthetics of the time. Music festivals, underground newspapers, and merchandise such as pins, posters, and t-shirts were all used to recruit, cohere, and build the movement. The movement spread to northern Europe, where it remains active in Germany.

A dayglo palette with psychedelic patterning and Ben Day dot gradients and color mixing makes the link between the Jesus People movement and hippie aesthetics explicit. The text, “where CHARITY & LOVE are, there is Jesus,” borrows hymnal language which aligns the movement with the “peace and love” sentiment of their secular, counterculture counterparts.

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