Artifacts from the Birth of the American Counterculture with Bob Dvonch
Fri. May 29th, 8pm
Bob Dvonch began collecting Haight-Ashbury ephemera during his freshman year at Knox College in the fall of 1966, when the San Francisco Mime Troupe performed on campus — a deliberately provocative performance that left a lasting impression on its audience. That encounter sparked a lifelong passion for the printed artifacts of the counterculture movement.
The following year, a friend who had been among the college students who migrated to Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of 1967, handed Dvonch his first Communication Company handbill — a direct, personal link to the streets of the Haight that has informed his collecting ever since. He encountered his first copy of Kaliflower, the San Francisco inter-communal newsletter, in 1971, and began collecting issues shortly thereafter.
With the emergence of the internet in the late 1990s, Dvonch recognized a unique opportunity: as the Love Generation’s principal participants aged, many began dispersing their collections through online marketplaces, booksellers, and auction houses — often with little competition from other buyers. Building on a collection already decades in the making, he began acquiring items in earnest, an activity he continues to this day.Dvonch retired in 2011 after a thirty-year career with the Federal government, serving as a Director, Program Manager, and Contracting Officer. He is currently developing collectingthecounterculture.com, an online catalogue of his collection, which is available for short-term loan to qualified individuals, educational institutions, museums, historical societies, and libraries.
