BEBOP RECORDS & FINE ART  was opened in Reseda in 1982 by Richard Bruland and René Engel as a combination Record Store, Art Gallery, and Performance Place. BEBOP became known as one of Los Angeles’s finest alternative performance spaces where musicians, poets, and performance and visual artists were given opportunities and freedoms not found at clubs with more commercial concerns. BEBOP’S emphasis on quality and it’s unusual insistence that artists retain as much creative control over as many aspects of their performance as possible, ensured that BEBOP became a favorite to both artists and audiences alike. Over the years, BEBOP presented such fine performers as Los Lobos, Victoria Williams, The Minutemen, Jane’s Addiction, Lucinda Williams, Peter Case, Beck, Exene Cervenka, and many, many more. BEBOP was also central to the development of the emerging spoken word scene in the L.A. area, and it’s stage was graced by such talents as Laurel Ann Bogen, Michael C Ford, David McIntire, Ellyn Maybe, La Loca, Henry Rollins, Wanda Coleman, The Carma Bums, and Harry Northup, to name just a few. In the Gallery, memorable shows by artists as diverse as Dori Atlantis, Cameron Jamie, and Raymond Pettibon, cemented BEBOP’S reputation as a cultural force in the Valley. BEBOP closed in August, 1990.

In order to stay connected to his primary passion – painting, Richard Bruland would make a hand-made, full color poster for each show. The purpose of the posters was to announce each evening’s performance from BEBOP’S front window. Almost 1,000 different posters were made.  Each poster was normally made the day of the event, usually in 2-3 hours. Often, finishing touches were being added as the audience was arriving for the show. No computers were used in making these posters - instead Bruland developed a method using black & white Xerox machines to produce full color hand-made original posters. The originals of these posters are now housed in the RICHARD BRULAND BEBOP RECORDS & FINE ART Archives in the Oviatt Library’s Special Collections Department at California State University, Northridge. They have become an invaluable document of a vital period in the cultural history of the San Fernando Valley.   Richard Bruland Bebop Records Art Posters Collection | Oviatt Library https://www.facebook.com/richard.bruland/media_set?set=a.1115538371592.19371.1320948194&type=3