This unusual and unique poster is an extraordinary Austin artifact. It commemorates the 1987 Texas–U.S.S.R. Musicians' Exchange, a cultural exchange tour of the Soviet Union featuring a group of Texas musicians, including Butch Hancock, Bobby Bridger, and Bobby Mack. The Texans performed with local musicians and met with artists and audiences in Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev.
This poster was designed by Nels "Jagmo" Jacobson, who also helped organize the tour, and was printed by Bee-Bop Printing. The silk-screened posters were printed in a limited number series of 100 and were used to publicize the tour or were given away during the exchange. Jagmo, who moved to Austin in 1978, has been an important figure in the Austin art and music scene, designing posters for live-music venues such as Liberty Lunch and for performers such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Ramones, Willie Nelson, and Jerry Jeff Walker. He was the original art director for South by Southwest, a founding director of the American Poster Institute and the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture, and is a board member of The Rock Poster Society. The Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion by Paul Grushkin and Dennis King pictures the 1987 exchange poster and includes a short biography of Jagmo. This poster is numbered in pencil 34 out of 100.
It also appears to have been signed by Jagmo in pencil.
This poster is the perfect confluence of history (both local and international), art, and music, capturing in striking graphics a specific period of Austin's past. If you are a fan of the Austin music scene, a local history buff, or a collector of contemporary posters (or especially all three) this poster awaits you at Next-to-New.
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